Ada and the NMD

Ada and the NMD

[Al Christians]

For all the commiseration about insufficient interest at large in
Ada, there is a development looming that could possibly remedy that
in a single stroke: the National Missile Defense plan.  This is a
system so preposterous that one can only think about doing it with
absurdly great software.  Is Ada the way to go for such a grandiose
project?  Is anyone lobbying to make Ada the "Official Programming 
Language of the NMD"?  Why or why not?   If the software for this 
project gets done primarily in non-Ada, then we can suspect that 
Ada's time has passed.  If it gets done primarily in Ada, then the 
anemia of interest in Ada will be cured instanter by a gross 
infusion of pelf.


Al

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <3B970152.4AC6C6E3@PublicPropertySoftware.com>, Al Christians <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> writes:
> For all the commiseration about insufficient interest at large in
> Ada, there is a development looming that could possibly remedy that
> in a single stroke: the National Missile Defense plan.  This is a
> system so preposterous that one can only think about doing it with
> absurdly great software.  Is Ada the way to go for such a grandiose
> project?  Is anyone lobbying to make Ada the "Official Programming 
> Language of the NMD"?  Why or why not?

So as not to be associated with the failure of an impossible mission ?

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Preben Randhol]

On Wed, 05 Sep 2001 21:53:38 -0700, Al Christians wrote:
> For all the commiseration about insufficient interest at large in
> Ada, there is a development looming that could possibly remedy that
> in a single stroke: the National Missile Defense plan.  This is a
> system so preposterous that one can only think about doing it with
> absurdly great software.  Is Ada the way to go for such a grandiose
> project?  Is anyone lobbying to make Ada the "Official Programming 
> Language of the NMD"?  Why or why not?   If the software for this 

The problem with this Star Wars project is that it does not have a good
reputation outside of USA. Neither do Mr Bush for that matter. One of
the new things I read is that the missiles, if shot down, will fall over
Europe. Not something we are very happy about I might say...

So as I see it it won't be good PR for Ada to be connected to NMD. Just
see how people try to use the Ariane case to blame Ada.

Preben Randhol

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Florian Weimer]

Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes:

> So as not to be associated with the failure of an impossible mission ?

Participation in the NMD project is a win/win situation.  If the
system successfully stops an attack, this will greatly increase your
reputation.  If the system fails, well, most of the people who could
criticize you are either dead or otherwise occupied for a longer time,
so this isn't a problem either.

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Marc A. Criley]

Al Christians wrote:
> 
> For all the commiseration about insufficient interest at large in
> Ada, there is a development looming that could possibly remedy that
> in a single stroke: the National Missile Defense plan.  This is a
> system so preposterous that one can only think about doing it with
> absurdly great software.  Is Ada the way to go for such a grandiose
> project?  Is anyone lobbying to make Ada the "Official Programming
> Language of the NMD"?  Why or why not?   If the software for this
> project gets done primarily in non-Ada, then we can suspect that
> Ada's time has passed.  If it gets done primarily in Ada, then the
> anemia of interest in Ada will be cured instanter by a gross
> infusion of pelf.

Ada is being used in several components of the NMD program--it's a big
program across many contractors, so I don't know the full breadth of its
use.  There's lots of Ada executing as part of those missile tests that
go off in the Pacific every few months.  (And no one has suggested Ada
is associated with any of the failures that had occurred.)

Marc A. Criley

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <slrn9petoj.bl.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>, Preben
Randhol says...
>The problem with this Star Wars project is that it does not have a good
>reputation outside of USA. Neither do Mr Bush for that matter. One of

You seem to think things are different here...

>the new things I read is that the missiles, if shot down, will fall over
>Europe. Not something we are very happy about I might say...

My understanding is that most of the ICBMs that the US and Russia had were aimed
at each other over the North Pole. If it "lands" anywhere ("lands" /=
"explodes", btw), it would probably be in Canada. 

Some of the reactions I hear from abroad about this are almost as silly as the
Star Wars program itself. Almost. There *are* good reasons for being against it,
but no one seems very interested in those reasons. A lot of it reminds me of the
protests at Cape Kenedy when they were launching that nuclear powered space
probe. Everyone was worried that it might explode and contaminate things. Never
mind that they got exposed to more harmful radiation standing out in the Florida
sun with their plackards than anyone would ever see if it exploded in the air.
It seems like whenever someone mentions the word "nuclear", people just get
stupid.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Preben Randhol]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 13:57:51 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:
> In article <slrn9petoj.bl.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>, Preben
> Randhol says...
>>The problem with this Star Wars project is that it does not have a good
>>reputation outside of USA. Neither do Mr Bush for that matter. One of
> 
> You seem to think things are different here...

I do not know... I hope not though. :-)

> My understanding is that most of the ICBMs that the US and Russia had
> were aimed at each other over the North Pole. If it "lands" anywhere
> ("lands" /= > "explodes", btw), it would probably be in Canada. 

Yes but as I understand the argumentation it is the protection of USA
against rogue states (not Russia) that is the target. And it doesn't
have to land to be harmful. I mean just look at the extent of the
nuclear downfall from Tsjernobyl.

> Some of the reactions I hear from abroad about this are almost as
> silly as the  Star Wars program itself. Almost. There *are* good
> reasons for being against it,

Such as it is easy to fool the system with flares or something like that
if I remember correctly?

> but no one seems very interested in those reasons. A lot of it reminds
> me of the protests at Cape Kenedy when they were launching that
> nuclear powered space probe. Everyone was worried that it might
> explode and contaminate things. Never mind that they got exposed to
> more harmful radiation standing out in the Florida sun with their
> plackards than anyone would ever see if it exploded in the air. It
> seems like whenever someone mentions the word "nuclear", people just get
> stupid.

Well having the downfall of an exploded nuclear missile drizzling over
you isn't exactly harmless unless the wind gods are so good as to carry
it all to Washington and drop it there. :-)

Anyhow the current goverment of USA does not seem to care at all about
the environment.

But to promote Ada by saying "Hey it is used to build the NMD" is not a good
idea in my opinion. I would rather concentrate on the non-military usage.

Preben Randhol

Re: Ada and the NMD

[James Rogers]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> 
> Anyhow the current goverment of USA does not seem to care at all about
> the environment.
> 

I think you have been listening to too much propaganda and drivel
on the news. 

The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".

The US abandonment of the Kyoto treaty is not actually far from the
EU position. In the EU politicians give verbal support for the 
Kyoto treaty but somehow fail to provide the funding necessary for
its implementation. In the US we simply state that the Kyoto treaty is
fundamentally flawed and will not be ratified.

Any agreement to save our environment must be based upon scientific
evidence and scientifically sound environmental management programs.
Unfortuntely, treaties such as the one developed at the Kyoto
conference are more about political attempts to control first world
economies than about sound scientific efforts.

President Bush has made it clear that he is willing to work for the
improvement of the environment, so long as agreements are based 
upon a sound scientific foundation.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Marin David Condic]

This is all drifting way off topic and into the realm of political opinions.

Let me ask this though (now that I have marked the subject line as off
topic):

If the Kyoto treaty is such a wonderful thing, why don't the Europeans just
go ahead and sign it themselves? Why do they need us to sign it for them?
Why shouldn't the US make its own decisions about what is in the best
interest of the US and all the rest of the world can do the same? If France,
Germany, England, et alia, all *love* this treaty so much and think it is in
their best interest, well, let them put their John Handcock on the bottom
line.

Or is this some version of the "Misery Loves Company" rule?

BTW: I like the observation about "solutions" - It seems that if one
disagrees with a solution proposed by certain groups then there is some sort
of automatic condemnation as being against the *goals* of that group. Maybe
I disagree with a *lot* of opinions about how to cure crime, poverty,
unemployment, disease and ignorance. But that doesn't mean that by that same
fact, I must be in *favor* of crime, poverty, unemployment, disease and
ignorance.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net...
>
> I think you have been listening to too much propaganda and drivel
> on the news.
>
> The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
> simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".
>
> The US abandonment of the Kyoto treaty is not actually far from the
> EU position. In the EU politicians give verbal support for the
> Kyoto treaty but somehow fail to provide the funding necessary for
> its implementation. In the US we simply state that the Kyoto treaty is
> fundamentally flawed and will not be ratified.
>
> Any agreement to save our environment must be based upon scientific
> evidence and scientifically sound environmental management programs.
> Unfortuntely, treaties such as the one developed at the Kyoto
> conference are more about political attempts to control first world
> economies than about sound scientific efforts.
>
> President Bush has made it clear that he is willing to work for the
> improvement of the environment, so long as agreements are based
> upon a sound scientific foundation.
>

Re: Ada and the NMD

[William Dale]

It seems the Trolls are out to drag politics into a language news group.
Go away ... to late.

Al Christians wrote:
> 
> For all the commiseration about insufficient interest at large in
> Ada, there is a development looming that could possibly remedy that
> in a single stroke: the National Missile Defense plan.  This is a
> system so preposterous that one can only think about doing it with
> absurdly great software.  Is Ada the way to go for such a grandiose
> project?  Is anyone lobbying to make Ada the "Official Programming
> Language of the NMD"?  Why or why not?   If the software for this
> project gets done primarily in non-Ada, then we can suspect that
> Ada's time has passed.  If it gets done primarily in Ada, then the
> anemia of interest in Ada will be cured instanter by a gross
> infusion of pelf.
> 
> Al

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Dale Pennington]

"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrn9pfbm4.ln.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
<SNIP>
>
> But to promote Ada by saying "Hey it is used to build the NMD" is not a
good
> idea in my opinion. I would rather concentrate on the non-military usage.
>
> Preben Randhol

Considering Ada's origin, that is an interesting statement.

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <slrn9pfbm4.ln.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>, Preben
Randhol says...
>Yes but as I understand the argumentation it is the protection of USA
>against rogue states (not Russia) that is the target. And it doesn't

You are making the mistake of believing that the current arguments you hear are
the *actual* reasons for making it. Things don't work that way here. We come up
with a government program or weapon system, then go looking for good
rationalizations for building it.

This very issue was touched on in, of all places, one of Douglas Adams' "Dirk
Gently" books. I'd give a quote, but I don't have the book handy. Essentially,
one of the main characters struck it rich by creating a sort of reverse-theorem
prover that you could give a conclusion, and it would come up with a set of
plausible-sounding steps to get you to that conclusion. When he got it
completed, the US DoD came in and bought the whole project. He claimed that he
recognised some of the argument patterns in the Congressional Star Wars
arguments. :-)


>have to land to be harmful. I mean just look at the extent of the
>nuclear downfall from Tsjernobyl.

H-bombs and shoddy Soviet nuclear fission plants are *quite* different from each
other. Most folks in this country never figured that one out either, though.

>> silly as the  Star Wars program itself. Almost. There *are* good
>> reasons for being against it,
>
>Such as it is easy to fool the system with flares or something like that
>if I remember correctly?

That's a particularly good one in my book. Why should I, as a taxpayer, spend
loads of my money developing something that will probably be defeatable with
some simple cheap countermeasure? Sure, we can then try to counter the
counter-measure. But that just leads to a vicious cycle where the baddies will
always inevitably be one step ahead. In the end I see tons of money spent for
very little gain. Better to just use the dough to send the terrorists to college
or something. Get them all jobs maintaining Perl code, and they'll be too busy
to even think about blowing anything up. :-)

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[chris.danx]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:9n882d$rsh$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> This is all drifting way off topic and into the realm of political
opinions.
>
> Let me ask this though (now that I have marked the subject line as off
> topic):
>
> If the Kyoto treaty is such a wonderful thing, why don't the Europeans
just
> go ahead and sign it themselves? Why do they need us to sign it for them?
> Why shouldn't the US make its own decisions about what is in the best
> interest of the US and all the rest of the world can do the same? If
France,
> Germany, England, et alia, all *love* this treaty so much and think it is
in
> their best interest, well, let them put their John Handcock on the bottom
> line.

Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.
If the US doesn't support it and Japan doesn't either then Kyoto is a dead
duck.  IMO Kyoto is pants and there are better ways of dealing with lowering
emissions like the emission credits system but no one in power really gives
a crap and arguing about it is pointless (emission reduction a vote winner,
and that's all).  The main idea is the same but the consequences of not
finding a way to implement the idea (emission reduction) could be dire...


The recent train of thought is that we have 40 to 100 years before the
Amazon sink begins releasing it's C02.  When that happens the biggest sink
of them all, the oceans, will release it's store (of something who's name
eludes me, but it decomposes to methane when the pressure drops i.e. as it
rises from the ocean floor, and oil rigs sometimes disturb a deposit) and
all hell breaks loose.  A rapid jump in temperature will occur (around 2 to
5 degrees in a few years), and the oceans will burn due to the methane
igniting which isn't good news for anyone.  This is thought to have happened
before so many million years ago and took 200,000 years to get into balance
again and sparked an extinction event.

Maybe this will happen, maybe not but recent evidence and experiments seem
to support it.  Like all science though it's not a certainty.

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>
>Preben Randhol wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Anyhow the current goverment of USA does not seem to care at all about
>> the environment.
>> 
>The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
>simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".

OK. Preben's statement seemed a bit extreme, but this one is a real howler.

As ususal I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, although I have to say
that I've yet to see any *hard* evidence that Preben is wrong. However, you
can't really use the term "government" wrt the US as Preben does, because we
don't quite work that way. Our government has 2 political branches, one of which
is split into two parts. Of those 3, 2 are presently controlled by one party,
and the third is (barely) controlled by another. Obviously, you'll search in
vain for any kind of unified coherent message comming out of the whole.

As for the president, its not his job to sign treaties. He can negotiate them,
and he can veto a congressional signature (which they can override), but
otherwise all he can do is talk. Our congress doesn't have to follow what he
says any more than yours does (perhaps even less). Think of him as sort of like
the King/Queen in a constitutional monarchy, but with veto power.

The presidential public position seems to be something along the lines of, "the
environment is important, as long as it doesn't undully burden business". So at
best, its not a top priority. But again, the *real* policy (at least outside our
shores) is whatever the individual members of our congress in the aggregate
decide it is.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <87lmjsttxa.fsf@deneb.enyo.de>, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:
> Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes:
> 
>> So as not to be associated with the failure of an impossible mission ?
> 
> Participation in the NMD project is a win/win situation.  If the
> system successfully stops an attack, this will greatly increase your
> reputation.  If the system fails, well, most of the people who could
> criticize you are either dead or otherwise occupied for a longer time,
> so this isn't a problem either.

You take only the subset of "failure" involved with actually attempting
to intercept a missile.

If the system dies from budget overrun and failure to produce a working
model, Ada suffers the reputation as a major part of code bloat that
keeps things from being accomplished.  Look at the Arianne, were Ada
gets blamed for managers making a cost-cutting decision.

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Darren New]

> Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
> Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.

Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

> Maybe this will happen, maybe not but recent evidence and experiments seem
> to support it.  Like all science though it's not a certainty.

I think it's closer to say "some evidence seems to support it." There's
a lot that doesn't. That's the problem.



-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Ted Dennison]

In article <iOOl7.11306$592.607182@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx
says...
>Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
>Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.

About 17% by the US, and slowly declining (our output is increasing, but not as
much as everyone else's. See the graph at the bottom of
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov98/1998L-11-17-02.html ).

>If the US doesn't support it and Japan doesn't either then Kyoto is a dead
>duck.  IMO Kyoto is pants and there are better ways of dealing with lowering

You are absolutely right. Its a dead duck. Without the US it will be as useless
as the League of Nations, and it won't have the US. The only reason it happened
at all was that our VP at the time liked to think of himself as an
envirionmentalist, and thought a worldwide agreement would be his crowning
glory. The American electorate sure wasn't impressed. Talking emmision reduction
in this country is a vote *loser*.

>The recent train of thought is that we have 40 to 100 years before the
(tale of woe deleted)

No one is really sure what will happen. I've heard some scientists speculate
that it could actually touch off another ice age instead of warming things (we
are probably overdue for one anyway). The only thing I'd be willing to bet on is
that things don't stay the same, but historicly that wouldn't be a good bet
anyway. Earth's climate has always changed wildly over time.

The problem is that we don't really understand the global environmental system
yet. Given that, trying to fix a percieved "bug" in it isn't likely to be
productive (although staying the course is likely to be disasterous as well). 

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Ada in air/missile defense systems (was: Ada and NMD)

[Michael P. Card]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1898 bytes --]

Hello CLA-

I do not know about the US NMD program, but I do not think Ada will have
a significant role in European air defense systems. This seems strange
given all the talk about how Ada is more accepted in Europe than in the
US.

As it is now, the radar mission software for Medium Extended Air Defense
System (MEADS), which is being developed locally here at LMC Syracuse,
is going to be 100% C++ as I understand it. The plan is to develop a
"prototype" MEADS radar system for about 32-36 months under the RRE
(Risk Reduction Effort) phase of the contract, with mission software in
C++ (presumably to reduce risk?). Now the final contract for MEADS
specifies the use of Ada95, but it is not realistic to expect that the
MEADS consortium will be willing to throw out hundreds of thousands of
lines of C++ in favor of recoding it in Ada95, so the "prototype"
developed for MEADS will ultimately be the final system.

If the European MEADS consortium is willing to accept this, and if it is
true that Europeans are more Adaphiles than their American counterparts,
then I would not expect Ada to play a significant role in future
air/missile defense systems.

- Mike

Al Christians wrote:

> For all the commiseration about insufficient interest at large in
> Ada, there is a development looming that could possibly remedy that
> in a single stroke: the National Missile Defense plan.  This is a
> system so preposterous that one can only think about doing it with
> absurdly great software.  Is Ada the way to go for such a grandiose
> project?  Is anyone lobbying to make Ada the "Official Programming
> Language of the NMD"?  Why or why not?   If the software for this
> project gets done primarily in non-Ada, then we can suspect that
> Ada's time has passed.  If it gets done primarily in Ada, then the
> anemia of interest in Ada will be cured instanter by a gross
> infusion of pelf.
>
> Al

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Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[chris.danx]

"Darren New" <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3B97C5D4.2AFBAEDF@san.rr.com...
> > Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
> > Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern
America.
>
> Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

It was in the new sci. i think, perhaps it wasn't just CO2 though (I could
check but New Sci. is weekly and it was months and months ago).

Ted reckons it's 17% now which would be good had there been an 8% drop in
emissions, but that's not the case.  Everyone else has just had a bigger
increase in output :-(


> > Maybe this will happen, maybe not but recent evidence and experiments
seem
> > to support it.  Like all science though it's not a certainty.
>
> I think it's closer to say "some evidence seems to support it."

Probably.  Science is highly driven by ppls' particular prejudices so it's
unlikely that research into this is going to be objective.  They either
believe it's not happening or it is, and they can't really decide on what
the outcomes going to be if they think it is happening.  The doom and gloom
scenario mentioned was probably prejudiced since it was shown here
(Britain).  Our weather system has supposedly got weirder with more floods,
however they tend to forget our government used to let builders build on
flood plains and that has only recently been rectified.

> There's
> a lot that doesn't. That's the problem.

Yes, evidence for either camp is used by politicians to further there
political aims.  It's a shame!  If there was consensus among scientists
politicians would find it harder to go against the grain, but that's not
going to happen anytime soon.

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <sQOl7.6806$4z.28740@www.newsranger.com>, Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> writes:
> In article <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>>
>>Preben Randhol wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Anyhow the current goverment of USA does not seem to care at all about
>>> the environment.
>>> 
>>The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
>>simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".
> 
> OK. Preben's statement seemed a bit extreme, but this one is a real howler.
> 
> As ususal I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, although I have to say
> that I've yet to see any *hard* evidence that Preben is wrong. However, you
> can't really use the term "government" wrt the US as Preben does, because we
> don't quite work that way. Our government has 2 political branches, one of which
> is split into two parts. Of those 3, 2 are presently controlled by one party,
> and the third is (barely) controlled by another. Obviously, you'll search in
> vain for any kind of unified coherent message comming out of the whole.

Please do not assume from Ted's remarks that when all three were
controlled by a single party there was a coherent message.

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Ted Dennison]

In article <1eQl7.11748$592.809913@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx
says...
>
>
>> > Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
>> > Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern
..
>Ted reckons it's 17% now which would be good had there been an 8% drop in
>emissions, but that's not the case.  Everyone else has just had a bigger
>increase in output :-(

Well, remember that my figure was for the US alone, whereas you were talking all
of North America (which generally includes Mexico and Canada, along with some
other smaller countries). Also, what I had was a projection from 1998 trends.
The numbers are in the right ballpark though.

You are right in your assesment that the US's role is unfortuantely becomming
less important through no efforts of our own. :-(

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <jfDbtwHhlbrh@eisner.encompasserve.org>, Larry Kilgallen says...
>
>> don't quite work that way. Our government has 2 political branches, one of >> which is split into two parts. Of those 3, 2 are presently controlled by one 
>> party, and the third is (barely) controlled by another. Obviously, you'll 
>> search in vain for any kind of unified coherent message comming out of the 
>> whole.
>
>Please do not assume from Ted's remarks that when all three were
>controlled by a single party there was a coherent message.

Quite true. You won't really find much coherent come out of the US government
unless the US people themselves are fairly unified on the subject (which for the
subject at hand, they certainly are not). As a former speaker of our House of
Representatives was fond of saying, "all politics is local".

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada and the NMD

[James Rogers]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
> >
> >Preben Randhol wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Anyhow the current goverment of USA does not seem to care at all about
> >> the environment.
> >>
> >The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
> >simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".
> 
> OK. Preben's statement seemed a bit extreme, but this one is a real howler.

A howler? Let's look at a few facts.

The US annually spends billions of dollars on so called super fund clean
up sites.

Emissions from US automobiles (on a per vehicle basis) are at an 
all time low.

Emissions from US factories (on a per factory basis) are at an all
time low.

Air pollution over major US cities is lower now than at any time in the
past 40 years. Compare this with polution over major cities in many
other countries. For example try Mexico City, Beijing, and Moscow.

US pollution requirements are in the process of being tightened. The
only question is how much this year.

Does this mean that the US has no additional or remaining responsibility
in the area of pollution control. Of course not. It does demonstrate a
real effort and commitment to improving the US pollution problems.

> The presidential public position seems to be something along the lines of, "the
> environment is important, as long as it doesn't undully burden business". So at
> best, its not a top priority. But again, the *real* policy (at least outside our
> shores) is whatever the individual members of our congress in the aggregate
> decide it is.
> 

Again, there is a balance to be maintained. It is theoretically possible
to simply outlaw all pollution producing sources. This approach is both
politically and economically impossible. On the other hand, doing
nothing
is just as politically and economically impossible.

Politicians in the US, as in Europe, must balance a number of
interests. How much pollution did European cities create in the
19th century? Would it have been practical to simply dismantle the
industrial revolution because of uncontrolled pollution? Of course
not. It was, however, both practical and desirable to develop more
efficient factories with improved and improving levels of pollution
control.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

OT: US Green politics (was: Ada and the NMD)

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B97DDEB.F13AADC0@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>
>Ted Dennison wrote:
>> 
>> In article <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>> >
>> >The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
>> 
>> OK. Preben's statement seemed a bit extreme, but this one is a real howler.
>
>A howler? Let's look at a few facts.

To support your statement, you will have to quote facts that come from the
current US government. None of the ones you quoted do that (and some, like
superfund, Bush wants to get rid of), except possibly this one:

>US pollution requirements are in the process of being tightened. The
>only question is how much this year.

..and if the Bush administration supports this effort, it would be actively
going back on a campaign promise made on November 3, 2000. It would also be
quite a switcheroo from when he fought that legislation as the Governor of
Texas. I doubt he'd do it, although he might be politicially forced to let it
slide through.

If you want to see Bush's environmental positions while he was running for pres
a year ago, an independent comparison is still available online at
http://www.issues2000.org/George_W__Bush_Environment.htm and at
http://www.issues2000.org/Environment.htm#Headlines (this is a non-partisan
website).

Also, the man made no secret during the campaign of being anti-Kyoto, so anyone
expressing shock at his actions this point has just been ill-informed.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

WAY OFF TOPIC was: Re: Ada and the NMD

[Marin David Condic]

If there is clear and convincing evidence that X is a problem and the public
believes that Y is a practical solution to the problem, you'll see political
action. Despite what people may choose to believe and/or advocate, there is
no overwhelming, clear, convincing evidence that the earth is in imminent
danger of destruction because of CO2, global warming, global cooling or
whatever the latest "threat" is. (Remember that for an extremely large
number of species on this planet, CO2 is a *good* thing - hence expect them
to flourish.) Even accepting that there is some real threat here, it is not
at all clear that any or all of the solutions proposed by various advocates
are going to be practical and effective. Hence, you get what we've got -
political ambivalence.

What disturbs me about the whole debate is that you'll have "Liberal"
scientists and "Conservative" scientists arguing positions as to what action
to take based on their political ideology - which makes a mockery of
science. The very notion of "Liberal" or "Conservative" scientists
eliminates the science from it. Too many people start from the result they
want and then go collecting data to support getting what they want and that
is not "science". Too often the general public swollows up propoganda
masquerading as "science" and have not even bothered to question the
accuracy of the pronouncements or even question that it might in fact be
propoganda. How many people ever ask: "Are there dissenting opinions?" How
many people ever say: "I ought to read some of those dissenting opinions to
see if maybe they have any merit." And of that subset, how many people read
the dissenting opinions with an open mind rather than just gathering
material on which to base their rhetoric?

 The whole global warming/cooling thing is being clouded by advocacy. At
best an honest scientist would have to conclude that the data itself is
questionable and hence does not at this time support any conclusions about
the current state of affairs and does not support the conclusion that there
is a real and imminent threat at hand. Hence, "science" is not in a position
to make any firm recommendations about the course of action whole nations
should embark on.

Does this mean we should all go about happily adding more and more pollution
to the world? Of course not. Nobody wants to live in an open sewer. At the
other extreme, should we, for example, go about outlawing the existence and
use of any internal combustion engine? That would have devastating economic
and social impact in the process of addressing a yet to be demonstrated
problem and would undoubtedly result in unintended consequences. (It may
only shift the pollution problem in some other direction that may be even
worse than what you've got now.) So I'd suggest that the question should be
studied scientifically - without advocacy - and in the mean time take
reasonable steps to reduce whatever pollution we are creating. We certainly
aren't all going to be dead in 10 years unless we take drastic actions
immediately. (Remember all those horrific ecological disaster predictions
from back in the 60's/70's that claimed we'd all be dead by the year 2000?
Welllllll....... :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:rPQl7.6990$4z.30964@www.newsranger.com...
>
> Quite true. You won't really find much coherent come out of the US
government
> unless the US people themselves are fairly unified on the subject (which
for the
> subject at hand, they certainly are not). As a former speaker of our House
of
> Representatives was fond of saying, "all politics is local".
>

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Preben Randhol]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 18:52:07 GMT, Darren New wrote:
> Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
turned into?

Preben Randhol

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Darren New]

> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
> turned into?

Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?

I.e., our emissions (i've read) are so relatively clean and we have
industrialized such relatively high amounts of open space that we (i.e.,
north america, including all inhabitants mammilian and otherwise) are
turning CO2 into plants faster than burning plants is releasing the CO2
back again.

Hmmm... Now, where *should* followups be redirected?

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Preben Randhol]

On Thu, 6 Sep 2001 17:21:58 GMT, Dale Pennington wrote:

> Considering Ada's origin, that is an interesting statement.

I mean if you are going to promote Ada outside the military :-). In a
lot of countries (especially those where it is still mandatory
drafting), the military is looked down to by young people who can be
potential Ada users. That DoD paid for Ada is not a problem for me as a
lot of money was available to make a language which is good and well
designed. But the label military language has a bad ring to it for a lot
of people...

Preben Randhol

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Preben Randhol]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 17:59:52 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:

> As ususal I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, although I have to say
> that I've yet to see any *hard* evidence that Preben is wrong. However, you
> can't really use the term "government" wrt the US as Preben does, because we
> don't quite work that way. Our government has 2 political branches, one of which
> is split into two parts. Of those 3, 2 are presently controlled by one party,
> and the third is (barely) controlled by another. Obviously, you'll search in
> vain for any kind of unified coherent message comming out of the whole.

When I say government I mean the Bush administration. The system is a
bit different here so that is why I said government.

But one thing that strikes me as very odd is that the Bush adm.
wants/wanted (I don't know the current status) to allow increased levels
of pollution in drinking water in the US as I understood it. It sounds
to me that the industry is much more important than the people of the
US for the Bush adm., but then again I'm not living over there.

Preben Randhol

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Preben Randhol]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 21:46:47 GMT, Darren New wrote:
>> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
>> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.
> 
>> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
>> turned into?
> 
> Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
> think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?

:-) no no no no if it only was that simple.

> I.e., our emissions (i've read) are so relatively clean and we have
> industrialized such relatively high amounts of open space that we (i.e.,
> north america, including all inhabitants mammilian and otherwise) are
> turning CO2 into plants faster than burning plants is releasing the CO2
> back again.

This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not. 

That emmissions are dropping in the US can perhaps be because the price
of petrol has increased.

Preben Randhol

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Jeff Creem]

"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrn9pg4ep.35r.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 21:46:47 GMT, Darren New wrote:
>
> This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
> there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
> cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
> the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
> then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not.
>


Umm..No.. We do not have our own atmosphere over here. There is a large
quantity of CO2 in
the air for plants to draw on even if we stopped adding new CO2 plus there
is plenty of
CO2 still being created by decaying material and Europe. The North American
Continent has
been reforesting faster than anyplace else in the world.

See  http://www.hooverdigest.org/011/huber.html
search for the word sink in the document.

Note this is not the only source of this data but it was the first I found.

Again, if the reduction of gases is so important than other countries should
just go ahead an
do it. We have been told that this sort of thing does not negatively impact
the economy so
what do you have to lose?


Just to bring things back a little closer to a the purpose of this group...I
suspect most
of the climate models that are predicting global warming effects are written
in C (with some
FORTRAN in the mix).. It will be great when we find out that the whole thing
was caused by running
of the end of some array :)

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[James Rogers]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
> there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
> cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
> the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
> then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not.
> 
> That emmissions are dropping in the US can perhaps be because the price
> of petrol has increased.

No. Not even a chance this is a factor. The recent increase in price
of petrochemicals has NOT reduced miles driven in the US. 

It is also good to remember that we do not currently have an 
accurate global climate model. We do not know all the influences of
water vapor, CO2, O3, O2, N2, particulates, NOx, CO, S2O4, etc.

It is clear that CO2, in the absence of other factors, does lead to
increased temperatures. It is not clear just how water vapor 
interacts with CO2 levels. Some models simply assume no interaction.
Those models are clearly over simplified. Some models show that
water vapor and CO2 work to balance the temperature of the Earth.
As CO2 levels increase they cause more evaporation from the oceans.
This in turn results in more clouds, rain, and severe storms, which
tend to cool the atmosphere. The increased rains also tend to dissolve
large quantities of CO2 as carbonates. Those carbonates react with
rocks and soils, creating carbonate salts, which removes CO2 from
the atmosphere.

Scientists are only beginning to understand the role of lightening
on the climate. It now appears that lightening is one of the primary
forces in the atmosphere. It is apparently responsible for many
previously unexpected chemical changes in the atmosphere. It also
acts as an energy safety valve for the climate.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: US Green politics (was: Ada and the NMD)

[David C. Hoos, Sr.]

Perhaps this bit of information will put the US declining to ratify the Kyoto
treaty in perspective  -- There is ONE European nation that has ratified it,
and that nation is Romania.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
To: <comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>
Sent: September 06, 2001 4:02 PM
Subject: OT: US Green politics (was: Ada and the NMD)


In article <3B97DDEB.F13AADC0@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>
>Ted Dennison wrote:
>>
>> In article <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>> >
>> >The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
>>
>> OK. Preben's statement seemed a bit extreme, but this one is a real howler.
>
>A howler? Let's look at a few facts.

To support your statement, you will have to quote facts that come from the
current US government. None of the ones you quoted do that (and some, like
superfund, Bush wants to get rid of), except possibly this one:

>US pollution requirements are in the process of being tightened. The
>only question is how much this year.

..and if the Bush administration supports this effort, it would be actively
going back on a campaign promise made on November 3, 2000. It would also be
quite a switcheroo from when he fought that legislation as the Governor of
Texas. I doubt he'd do it, although he might be politicially forced to let it
slide through.

If you want to see Bush's environmental positions while he was running for
pres
a year ago, an independent comparison is still available online at
http://www.issues2000.org/George_W__Bush_Environment.htm and at
http://www.issues2000.org/Environment.htm#Headlines (this is a non-partisan
website).

Also, the man made no secret during the campaign of being anti-Kyoto, so
anyone
expressing shock at his actions this point has just been ill-informed.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com
_______________________________________________
comp.lang.ada mailing list
comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Preben Randhol]

On Fri, 07 Sep 2001 00:28:53 GMT, Jeff Creem wrote:
> Again, if the reduction of gases is so important than other countries should
> just go ahead an
> do it. We have been told that this sort of thing does not negatively impact
> the economy so
> what do you have to lose?

We are. Some has to take responsibility in this world.

> Just to bring things back a little closer to a the purpose of this group...I
> suspect most
> of the climate models that are predicting global warming effects are written
> in C (with some
> FORTRAN in the mix).. It will be great when we find out that the whole thing
> was caused by running
> of the end of some array :)

He he he

Preben Randhol

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Preben Randhol]

On Fri, 07 Sep 2001 01:27:07 GMT, James Rogers wrote:
> It is clear that CO2, in the absence of other factors, does lead to
> increased temperatures. It is not clear just how water vapor 
> interacts with CO2 levels. Some models simply assume no interaction.

Also the sun seems to be contributing more energy to the earth now.

> Those models are clearly over simplified. Some models show that
> water vapor and CO2 work to balance the temperature of the Earth.
> As CO2 levels increase they cause more evaporation from the oceans.
> This in turn results in more clouds, rain, and severe storms, which
> tend to cool the atmosphere. The increased rains also tend to dissolve
> large quantities of CO2 as carbonates. Those carbonates react with
> rocks and soils, creating carbonate salts, which removes CO2 from
> the atmosphere.

Yes, you get H2CO3, HCO3- and CO32-. The latter can react with say Mg2+,
Ca2+, Sr2+ etc to form carbonate salts. The more basic the solution is
the more CO32- you have. The more CO2 you have in your water the more
acidic it is (so less CO32-). Anyhow this will not be a big effect on CO2.

Another problem is that a huge amount of CO2 is dissolved the ocean. If
one gets a hotter earth the tempereature in the sea would rise and CO2
will be released (as water dissolves more gas at lower temperatures)
into the atmosphere.

But this if off topic. I'll stop now.

What I would rather see is that they make a good climat model in Ada
than Ada in NMD :-)

Preben Randhol

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Marin David Condic]

Basically, if its green and grows in dirt, it inhales CO2 and exhales
oxygen. So if there is lots of CO2 around, plant life ought to flourish
quite well - consuming the excess until it once again reaches a balance
point. (Oxygen is obviously poisonous to plants so we're kind of doing them
a favor by making CO2. So get out there and drive that SUV and do your part
to restore the rain forests, the spotted owl habitats, the wetlands and all
that other good stuff. :-) There's probably a whole slew of bacteria and
other living things out there that breathe CO2 as well, so they'll be having
a field day.

MDC

--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrn9pg2l9.35r.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 18:52:07 GMT, Darren New wrote:
> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.
>
> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
> turned into?
>
> Preben Randhol

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Marin David Condic]

That seems to be a misunderstanding of how living organisms work. If there's
a CO2-rich environment, plants will flourish and make Oxygen until they
start poisoning themselves back with their own excriment. Then we'll have an
Oxygen-rich environment which will be good for some other life form (The
SUV?) that makes CO2.

Living organisms on this planet adapt to the conditions around them. What
may be bad for one creature is good for another. You can't stop life. You
can't kill this planet. It *will* adapt.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrn9pg4ep.35r.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
>
> This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
> there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
> cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
> the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
> then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not.
>

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B97EEC5.B9109D9F@san.rr.com>, Darren New says...
>
>> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
>> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.
>
>> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
>> turned into?
>
>Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
>think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?

We made that embarassingly silly argument at one of the later Kyoto meetings. It
turns out that its quite debatable whether this is true or not (later studies
say not). However, its also quite beside the point. When we first came to this
continent it was covered with forests, except for the Great Plains in the
middle, which was covered with bison. Forests covered the entire eastern
seaboard, which is now just one big city from Boston to DC. At the time, the
forests were just cleaing up all the CO2 the bison were putting out. We replaced
the bison with domesticated cattle, so there's no net gain there. We cut down a
lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are cutting, so
there's no net gain there. Then we industrialized and started pumping out
*extra* CO2 by the ton. Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around) before we
ever got here is just plain silly.

Of course it may be true that they will grow faster and pick up the slack as CO2
levels rise. It may even be true that blue-green alge in the oceans will expand
to consume all the CO2 we could possibly pump out. But if our arguement is that
there is *no* problem, then we should just come out and say that, rather than
trying to hide behind this forest sillyness.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Off Topic Re: US Green politics (was: Ada and the NMD)

[Marin David Condic]

My point exactly. If the treaty is such a great and wonderful thing, then
the European nations should just get off their butts and sign it. Maybe if
there is this huge groundswell of support and acceptance on the part of
Europe, the United States will get caught up in the general celebration and
in a fit of good will and camraderie go sign along with them.

If Europeans want to complain that the US should go sign this treaty, I'd
suggest that they first come here with a photocopy of their signed treaty &
demonstrate that they really mean it. Otherwise, it looks suspiciously like
the Europeans *don't* want to sign the treaty but still want to look
"green" - so they blame their lack of signature on the US.

I'm willing to be proven wrong. Just sign it and post a copy on the net. :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"David C. Hoos, Sr." <david.c.hoos.sr@ada95.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.999828367.16988.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> Perhaps this bit of information will put the US declining to ratify the
Kyoto
> treaty in perspective  -- There is ONE European nation that has ratified
it,
> and that nation is Romania.
>

Re: WAY OFF TOPIC was: Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9n8put$67u$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says...
>
>If there is clear and convincing evidence that X is a problem and the public
>believes that Y is a practical solution to the problem, you'll see political
>action. Despite what people may choose to believe and/or advocate, there is
>no overwhelming, clear, convincing evidence that the earth is in imminent
>danger of destruction because of CO2, global warming, global cooling or
>whatever the latest "threat" is. (Remember that for an extremely large
>number of species on this planet, CO2 is a *good* thing - hence expect them
>to flourish.) Even accepting that there is some real threat here, it is not
>at all clear that any or all of the solutions proposed by various advocates
>are going to be practical and effective. Hence, you get what we've got -
>political ambivalence.

That's pretty much where I am too. I do personally *suspect* there is a problem,
but the evidence that there is one is certianly not all in, or even the evidnece
as to what it is. I remember vividly back in the '70 people telling me at school
that we'd run totally out of oil by 2000. Realise that I grew up in Tulsa
Oklahoma, which at the time styled itslef as the Oil Capital of the world. Our
entire economy here was based on it. If there was one place in the world immune
to anti-oil environmentalists, it was Tulsa. So I know people seriously believed
this. Quite a few laws were passed to try to help "fix" this problem. Of course
nothing even remotely like that has happened.

Note that I'm not saying I think there's no problem. I personally think there
is. I just don't know exactly what it is yet. :-)

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <slrn9pg3ss.35r.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>, Preben
Randhol says...
>
>wants/wanted (I don't know the current status) to allow increased levels
>of pollution in drinking water in the US as I understood it. It sounds
>to me that the industry is much more important than the people of the

It would probably be fair to say that business concerns have always been top
priority or close to it here. It has certainly been that way for the Republican
party (Bush's party) since the late 1800's. Calvin Coolidge, republican
president in the late 1920's is famous for saying "The chief business of the
American people is business." A less famous but equally telling quote from him
is "...the man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works
there worships there..."

That has of course not nessecarily been the outlook of the other party during
this time. But there is far less difference between the two parties than is
typical in other countries, so you can probably take these attitudes a only
being a bit beyond the norm.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Darren New]

> >Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
> >think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?
> 
> We made that embarassingly silly argument at one of the later Kyoto meetings. 

Sorry? The embarrassingly silly argument that forests consume CO2 and
produce O2? Or the embarrassingly silly argument that petrochemicals
came from plants, and animals that ate plants, and animals that ate
animals that ate plants?

> It turns out that its quite debatable whether this is true or not (later studies
> say not).

I'd *love* to see a study that says plants don't consume CO2.

>  Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
> when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around) before we
> ever got here is just plain silly.

Well, has anyone *measured* it? That's my point. I don't believe folks
that stand up and say "It's silly that the world would work this way. We
could measure it, but then we'd have actual facts."

Folks who keep making these assertions without any evidence is the
problem.

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
    Those who work hard with few results always 
           value hard work over getting results.

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[James Rogers]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> That seems to be a misunderstanding of how living organisms work. If there's
> a CO2-rich environment, plants will flourish and make Oxygen until they
> start poisoning themselves back with their own excriment. Then we'll have an
> Oxygen-rich environment which will be good for some other life form (The
> SUV?) that makes CO2.
> 
> Living organisms on this planet adapt to the conditions around them. What
> may be bad for one creature is good for another. You can't stop life. You
> can't kill this planet. It *will* adapt.

If you are interested in where the CO2 is on Earth, download the paper
at http://www.sfu.ca/chemcai/pdf/c3carb.pdf
(requires Adobe Acrobat reader).

Note that plants do take in a large amount of CO2, but act only as a
temporary reservoir. On the other hand, you may also note that most
of the CO2 in on Earth (Atmosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere) is
contained by the oceans.

Contrary to an assertion previously made on this subject, CO2 solubility
in water (fresh and seawater) increases with increased temperature.
In fact, CO2 follows Henry's law very well up to a partial pressure of
5 atm. Henry's law is summarized as P(i) = X(i)KT. This is interpreted
as:

"The mole fraction X(i) of a species "i" that dissolves in a solvent
 at a temperature T is proportional to the partial pressure P(i)."

This relationship indicates that the oceans will dissolve more CO2
as the partial pressure of CO2 increases in the atmosphere. 
It would appear that Henry's law predicts a lower mole fraction of
CO2 in water as the temperature increases. In fact this does not
happen because K is not a constant. K actually decreases as T
increases. The overall result is that solubility in water increases
as the water temperature increases.

This does not imply that the oceans can rapidly dissolve all excess
CO2 in the atmosphere. It does, however debunk the concept that 
increased atmospheric temperatures will trigger a release of
dissolved CO2 in the oceans.

Regarding the reforestation of North America. Although the forests in
North America are regenerating, they are not regenerating fast enough
to replace the desctruction of tropical forests. I believe the loss
of tropical forests may be more important to climate balance than CO2
production. This is one of the flaws I see in the Kyoto treaty.
It exempted the countries destroying tropical forests.

Atmospheric CO2 dumping does need to be controlled and even reduced.
There are a number of well known chemical processes that can be used
to scrub exhausts from contained combustion sources. At the same time
we need to stop the destruction of forests. Forest product are still
important in the world economy. Forest management techniques are
also well known. The Swiss, for instance, have practiced sound
forest management techniques for hundreds of years. 

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

James Rogers wrote:

> Ted Dennison wrote:
>>In article <3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says...
>>>Preben Randhol wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Anyhow the current goverment of USA does not seem to care at all about
>>>>the environment.
>>>>
>>>The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
>>>simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".
>>>
>>OK. Preben's statement seemed a bit extreme, but this one is a real howler.
> 
> A howler? Let's look at a few facts.
> 
...

> Emissions from US factories (on a per factory basis) are at an all
> time low.
> 
> Air pollution over major US cities is lower now than at any time in the
> past 40 years. Compare this with polution over major cities in many
> other countries. For example try Mexico City, Beijing, and Moscow.
>...
> Jim Rogers
> Colorado Springs, Colorado USA


I tried to stay out of this but..

Have you flown over Lake Erie lately?  You can see the brown sludge

going into the lake from the Southern side.. One great big messy
pool of it -- very difficult to miss. There seems to me to be
very little evidence that it is getting any better.

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://members.home.net/ve3wwg

Re: WAY OFF TOPIC was: Re: Ada and the NMD

[Robert Dewar]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in message news:<9n8put$67u$1@nh.pace.co.uk>...
> If there is clear and convincing evidence that X is a problem and the public
> believes that Y is a practical solution to the problem, you'll see political
> action.

Puting WAY OFF TOPIC in the subject line is absolutely
no excuse for posting stuff that belongs in another
newsgroup. Really, this is very anti-social behavior.
CLA has been relatively well behaved, and it is sad
to see junk like this appearing. I would suggest that
anyone who cannot resist following up something like
this redirect to a more appropriate newsgroup!

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Florian Weimer]

Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes:

> If the system dies from budget overrun and failure to produce a working
> model, Ada suffers the reputation as a major part of code bloat that
> keeps things from being accomplished. 

I don't think this is a risk---think of the Concorde effect, and this
project is far more ambitious and is likely to receive strong
government backing over the next few years.

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Larry Elmore]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <iOOl7.11306$592.607182@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx
> says...
> >Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
> >Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.
> 
> About 17% by the US, and slowly declining (our output is increasing, but not as
> much as everyone else's. See the graph at the bottom of
> http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov98/1998L-11-17-02.html ).

One should also realize that _all_ man-made CO2 emissions add up to only
a tiny percentage of total CO2 production. Even if _all_ human CO2
production ceased this very instant (including respiration, if you want
to go so far as the kooks who think the only way to "save the planet" is
voluntary extinction of the human species -- there's a couple of web
sites on the subject), it's possible that CO2 levels would still be
climbing. Increased CO2 _might_ be a result of warming, not a cause. We
simply don't know enough yet. It appears from some studies that on a
geologic time scale, CO2 levels are currently rising from an _all-time
low_ over the past couple of million years (the Ice Ages may be
related).

> >If the US doesn't support it and Japan doesn't either then Kyoto is a dead
> >duck.  IMO Kyoto is pants and there are better ways of dealing with lowering
> 
> You are absolutely right. Its a dead duck. Without the US it will be as useless
> as the League of Nations, and it won't have the US. The only reason it happened
> at all was that our VP at the time liked to think of himself as an
> envirionmentalist, and thought a worldwide agreement would be his crowning
> glory. The American electorate sure wasn't impressed. Talking emmision reduction
> in this country is a vote *loser*.

Although when energy usage (and pollution created) is compared with GDP,
the US is one of the most efficient nations on Earth. It's the Third
World where things are getting dire. Poor people can't _afford_ to worry
overly much about the environment, and it shows.
 
> >The recent train of thought is that we have 40 to 100 years before the
> (tale of woe deleted)
> 
> No one is really sure what will happen. I've heard some scientists speculate
> that it could actually touch off another ice age instead of warming things (we
> are probably overdue for one anyway). The only thing I'd be willing to bet on is
> that things don't stay the same, but historicly that wouldn't be a good bet
> anyway. Earth's climate has always changed wildly over time.

Yes, it's a demonstrable fact that climate has changed more (sometimes
in a few decades, maybe only a couple decades) in the far past (in human
terms, not geologic) than even the most dire current predictions of
global warming forecast over the next century. I have no doubt at all
that had the professional Chicken Littles of the world would also have
been carrying on just as loudly if they'd lived 12,000 years ago as the
current Great Warming began. Of course, the disasters that befell the
world (the larger part of the icecaps melting off, sea level rising 100
meters, etc) led directly to what we consider "normal". Warming is
happening now, but whether or not humans have _appreciably_ influenced
it is an open question. What caused the Little Ice Age of the
1600-1800's? And what brought it to an end? I think solar variability
has _much_ more impact than human activity has had, and one really good
volcanic eruption like Tambora, Thera, or the truly monstrous one of
Krakatoa in the far past that split Java from Sumatra would make the sum
total of human influence look puny indeed.
 
> The problem is that we don't really understand the global environmental system
> yet. Given that, trying to fix a percieved "bug" in it isn't likely to be
> productive (although staying the course is likely to be disasterous as well).

Luckily, we're _not_ staying the course (not on a decadal scale).
Technology is improving rapidly, and in the industrialized world, things
are mostly getting better. Some "improvements" are just lying with
statistics, but then so are _some_ of the "dire" events that get highly
publicized. I've read that Germany's claimed reduction in greenhouse
emissions since 1990 is only real when all of current Germany is used as
the basis for comparison. The western part actually went up slightly,
while the economic collapse of the dirty, inefficient heavy industry in
the old eastern part is what brought the sum total down.

Larry

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Larry Elmore]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 17:59:52 GMT, Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> > As ususal I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, although I have to say
> > that I've yet to see any *hard* evidence that Preben is wrong. However, you
> > can't really use the term "government" wrt the US as Preben does, because we
> > don't quite work that way. Our government has 2 political branches, one of which
> > is split into two parts. Of those 3, 2 are presently controlled by one party,
> > and the third is (barely) controlled by another. Obviously, you'll search in
> > vain for any kind of unified coherent message comming out of the whole.
> 
> When I say government I mean the Bush administration. The system is a
> bit different here so that is why I said government.
> 
> But one thing that strikes me as very odd is that the Bush adm.
> wants/wanted (I don't know the current status) to allow increased levels
> of pollution in drinking water in the US as I understood it. It sounds
> to me that the industry is much more important than the people of the
> US for the Bush adm., but then again I'm not living over there.

Not _increased_ levels, just the same levels we've had for years and
years. _Most_ of the country already meets the proposed new lower
standard for arsenic, for example. The places that don't are
overwhelmingly due to natural sources in the local environment. Also,
there's absolutely _nothing_ preventing a state, or a county, or a town
from spending the money to meet whatever standards the local citizens
approve of setting for themselves. IIRC, the new standard would've been
an "unfunded mandate", so the federal government wouldn't be providing
money to the effort, only fining those towns who didn't meet the
standards soon enough.

I read the NRC/NAS report on arsenic, and I thought the summary's
conclusions were misleading at best, and directly contradict some of
their own earlier statements. Several times they mention that virtually
_no_ scientifically valid studies of the effects of low levels of
arsenic are available, but they conclude that because high levels do
cause problems, then low levels must be bad, too. Never mind the fact
that almost nothing natural that we know of follows such a linear scale
of toxicity, or danger...

Larry

RE: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Darren New et al.
You are referring to the carbon fixation subsequent to photosynthesis. The
CO2 is transformed into sugars and then primarily into cellulose.

There has been mention of the possibility that some of the software used in
the climatic change calculations could have errors. This is probably true
given the manufacturing technologies used and quality. This certainly is a
failure of the National Science Foundation. However, I do believe that in
general that the arguments against global warming are correct. The simple
fact that the USA is running low on petroleum is sufficient argument to stop
wasting fossil fuels. Our present automobile based transportation system is
obscenely inefficient. The efficiency of employing a 5,000 lb SUV to
transport a 150 lb human (3% payload) is a disgrace.

One of the major impediments to the use of nuclear power is the publics'
lack of trust in the reliability of these reactors. I certainly would not
want to live near a nuclear power station programmed with Microsoft, Sun, or
IBM technology. Software written at CMU level 5 in Ada with a careful
inspection by hazard experts would at least alleviate my fears concerning
the software part of the technology.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Darren New
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 9:07 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)


> >Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
> >think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?
>
> We made that embarassingly silly argument at one of the later Kyoto
meetings.

Sorry? The embarrassingly silly argument that forests consume CO2 and
produce O2? Or the embarrassingly silly argument that petrochemicals
came from plants, and animals that ate plants, and animals that ate
animals that ate plants?

> It turns out that its quite debatable whether this is true or not (later
studies
> say not).

I'd *love* to see a study that says plants don't consume CO2.

>  Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
> when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around)
before we
> ever got here is just plain silly.

Well, has anyone *measured* it? That's my point. I don't believe folks
that stand up and say "It's silly that the world would work this way. We
could measure it, but then we'd have actual facts."

Folks who keep making these assertions without any evidence is the
problem.

--
Darren New
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
    Those who work hard with few results always
           value hard work over getting results.

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Larry Elmore]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> ... When we first came to this
> continent it was covered with forests, except for the Great Plains in the
> middle, which was covered with bison. Forests covered the entire eastern
> seaboard, which is now just one big city from Boston to DC. At the time, the
> forests were just cleaing up all the CO2 the bison were putting out. We replaced
> the bison with domesticated cattle, so there's no net gain there. We cut down a
> lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are cutting, so
> there's no net gain there. Then we industrialized and started pumping out
> *extra* CO2 by the ton. Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
> when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around) before we
> ever got here is just plain silly.

The fact is, there is a great deal more land under forest in America now
than there was 100 years ago. Nor was much of the continent a primeval
forest when the first Europeans landed, though as the plagues reduced
Indian populations by upwards of 90%, much of the land under their care
did rapidly revert to heavily forested wilderness. America was not a
virgin land, but a widowed one.

see:
	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/landscapes.htm
	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/AmIndian.htm

There's quite a lot more about the subject available, but these are good
introductions.

Larry

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Stefan Skoglund]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> always inevitably be one step ahead. In the end I see tons of money spent for
> very little gain. Better to just use the dough to send the terrorists to college
> or something. Get them all jobs maintaining Perl code, and they'll be too busy
> to even think about blowing anything up. :-)

Giva a boy a bad school and you are gonna build a prison for the
grown-up or
give the boy a stable childhood and a good school and he is gonna build
a temple for you.

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Richard Riehle]

Dale Pennington wrote:

> "Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
> news:slrn9pfbm4.ln.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
> <SNIP>
> >
> > But to promote Ada by saying "Hey it is used to build the NMD" is not a
> good
> > idea in my opinion. I would rather concentrate on the non-military usage.
> >
> > Preben Randhol
>
> Considering Ada's origin, that is an interesting statement.

Lots of initiatives begun for military reasons have found their most important
usage in commercial, non-military enterprises.   One example is the medium we
are using for this discussion:  the Internet.   There are, of course, many
others.

Ada, once it is understood on its own merits instead of as a military-only
programming
language, may prove just as valuable for certain software applications.   I
note you are
from Boeing.   Certainly, Boeing has found some virtue in Ada for some
products. Also,
since this discussion involves nuclear energy, it would be remiss of us to
overlook the
fact that some of the newest nuclear power plants under construction (alas, not
in the
United States) will have software developed in Ada.

Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B9A4CA7.A3231B1F@home.com>, Larry Elmore says...
>
>The fact is, there is a great deal more land under forest in America now
>than there was 100 years ago. Nor was much of the continent a primeval

>see:
>	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/landscapes.htm
>	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/AmIndian.htm

Neither of these links say that. They do make the point that we have a lot more
dense undergrowth now that people (read-non indians who now control the land)
aren't doing regular burns, and that some places that were savannahs are now
forest. Both are valid points. But neither addresses in any quantative sense are
our current state of forest cover vs. what was here.

But again, its all a red herring anyway. Whatever there is or was has *nothing*
to do with our CO2 output. It was all here (a bit more or less) happily
converting CO2 long before the fist US factory was built. 

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B98F09F.EE2F4B54@san.rr.com>, Darren New says...
>
>> >Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
>> >think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?
>> 
>> We made that embarassingly silly argument at one of the later Kyoto meetings. 
>
>Sorry? The embarrassingly silly argument that forests consume CO2 and
>produce O2? Or the embarrassingly silly argument that petrochemicals
>came from plants, and animals that ate plants, and animals that ate
>animals that ate plants?

No, the embarrassingly silly argument that plants that were here consuming CO2
long before the first factory was ever built somehow now excuse all the *new*
CO2 we are creating (heck, we've even got CO2 soaking to burn. Humvies for
everyone! I think I'll get a coal-burning stove!). Sure forests do that (as do
grasslands), but they were allready fully tasked keeping CO2 at pre-1800 levels
back when humans here were all farming and ranching (or the nomadic equivalent).

If we want to believe that there's no problem and thus we don't have to do
anything, then we should be grownups about it and do so. This forest biz is a
transparent attempt to find something, anything, that excuses our behaviour. It
just makes us look like irresponsible guilty kids. Its like when my son breaks
something, I tell him it costs money to replace, and he claims that's OK,
because I (dad) will go to work and make money. I'm *already* doing that, damit.
I wanted to use that money to buy a new 3D card...

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B98F394.4040308@home.com>, Warren W. Gay VE3WWG says...
>
>Have you flown over Lake Erie lately?  You can see the brown sludge

Well, the river in Cleveland doesn't catch fire every winter now... :-)

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

[ XFUT sci.environment ]

James:

[ solubility of CO2 in water ]

> This does not imply that the oceans can rapidly dissolve all excess
> CO2 in the atmosphere. It does, however debunk the concept that
> increased atmospheric temperatures will trigger a release of
> dissolved CO2 in the oceans.

I think somebody may have misunderstood something regarding
release of greenhouse gasses from the oceans due to
increasing temperature.

It is suspected (I am not aware of any reasonably certain
proofs) that there are large amounts of methane ice stored
below the ocean seafloor. The short-term effect of global
heating should be increased precipitation in the arctic
areas, which means _lower_ sea-levels, and thus lower
pressure at the seafloor. The pressure might thus become too
low for keeping methane in frozen form in some of the
reservoirs, which would result in release of methane into
the atmosphere. (definitely lots of if's)

Jacob
-- 
"There are only two types of data:
                         Data which has been backed up
                         Data which has not been lost - yet"

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Leif Roar Moldskred]

Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote:

[SNIP]

> Sorry? The embarrassingly silly argument that forests consume CO2 and
> produce O2? Or the embarrassingly silly argument that petrochemicals
> came from plants, and animals that ate plants, and animals that ate
> animals that ate plants?

[SNIP]

> I'd *love* to see a study that says plants don't consume CO2.

In this context, for all intent and purposes they don't. A living
plant converts CO2 into O2 and carbon, but when it dies and rots (or
when it's eaten by an animal, or thrown on a fire) the carbon in the
wood is combined with 02 back into C02. So over its entire life-cycle,
a plant does not consume CO2. So that a forest in equilibrium releases
back into the atmosphere as much CO2 as it consumes.

In other words, the image of the world's forests being "lungs" is
wrong.

A _growing_ forest consumes (a net worth of) CO2, while a forest in
equilibrium _stores_ a non-trivial amount of carbon as cellulose,
effectively keeping it out of the system, and unable to contribute to
global warming.

On of the issues at Kyoto was if planting new forests,
i.e. effectively increasing the total amount of cellulose / carbon,
should count as a reduction in net release of CO2 or not.


-- 
Leif Roar Moldskred
not a biologist, nor do I play one on TV.

Re: Ada and the NMD

[David Bolen]

Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> writes:

> Ada, once it is understood on its own merits instead of as a
> military-only programming language, may prove just as valuable for
> certain software applications.  I note you are from Boeing.
> Certainly, Boeing has found some virtue in Ada for some
> products. Also, since this discussion involves nuclear energy, it
> would be remiss of us to overlook the fact that some of the newest
> nuclear power plants under construction (alas, not in the United
> States) will have software developed in Ada.

Anyone know what current US plants are using for their control systems?

--
-- David
-- 
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------\
 \               David Bolen            \   E-mail: db3l@fitlinxx.com  /
  |             FitLinxx, Inc.            \  Phone: (203) 708-5192    |
 /  860 Canal Street, Stamford, CT  06902   \  Fax: (203) 316-5150     \
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------/

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Ted Dennison]

In article <u66aqhih1.fsf@ctwd0143.fitlinxx.com>, David Bolen says...
>
>Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> writes:
>Anyone know what current US plants are using for their control systems?

I don't believe *any* have been approved for construction in the US since before
the first Ada standard was approved. I seem to remember that the last one was in
the late 70's, but I can't find a reference online to back that up. One was just
completed 6 years ago, but work started on it 23 years before that.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada and the NMD

[Steve Howard]

David Bolen wrote:

> Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> writes:
>
> > Ada, once it is understood on its own merits instead of as a
> > military-only programming language, may prove just as valuable for
> > certain software applications.  I note you are from Boeing.
> > Certainly, Boeing has found some virtue in Ada for some
> > products. Also, since this discussion involves nuclear energy, it
> > would be remiss of us to overlook the fact that some of the newest
> > nuclear power plants under construction (alas, not in the United
> > States) will have software developed in Ada.
>
> Anyone know what current US plants are using for their control systems?

Relay logic.

Although it has been a few years (12, to be exact) since I worked in the
nuclear industry, my guess is that things have not changed significantly in
that time frame.

At that time, AFAIR, there was no computer control of any of the
safety-related systems of any commercial reactor. The systems used were
purely relay and electronic logic based. Even one of the last reactors
commissioned, completed ca. 1990 (Nine Mile Point Unit II in Oswego, NY) did
not use computers for controlling the reactor. Some auxiliary systems used
computers for control (rad waste processing). Computers served almost
exclusively a monitoring role. The main plant computer collected data for
display, and to use for fuel calculations, but the reactor controls and
instrumentation used analog gauges, meters, and controls. Other computer
systems monitored radiation levels, meteorological conditions, etc., mostly
for use in emergency preparedness. In my experience, these were programmed in
assembly or FORTRAN.

Around that time, some plants were installing digital feedwater control
systems, replacing the older control systems. I did not have any exposure to
these systems, but the were probably micro-controller based.

Steve

--
Steve Howard
Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Syracuse
stephen.e.howard at lmco dot com
(315)456-7579

Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Larry Elmore]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <3B9A4CA7.A3231B1F@home.com>, Larry Elmore says...
> >
> >The fact is, there is a great deal more land under forest in America now
> >than there was 100 years ago. Nor was much of the continent a primeval
> 
> >see:
> >       http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/landscapes.htm
> >       http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/AmIndian.htm
> 
> Neither of these links say that. They do make the point that we have a lot more
> dense undergrowth now that people (read-non indians who now control the land)
> aren't doing regular burns, and that some places that were savannahs are now
> forest. Both are valid points. But neither addresses in any quantative sense are
> our current state of forest cover vs. what was here.

These photos record dramatic increases in the understory 
density and overstory biomass volume of forest vegetation over the last
century, 
and a decrease or complete elimination of both the aspen component and
in the 
herbaceous understory in conifer stands.  In addition, grasslands have
become 
                                                      
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
woodlands and open woodlands have become dense forests.  Other
non-photographic 
^^^^^^^^^
studies strongly corroborate the existence of such changes (Covington &
Moore 
1994, Sampson et al. 1993).

If you want quantitative data, the UN's FAO at http://www.fao.org has
quite a bit. They're unavailable at the moment, so I can't be more
precise.

From "Lightening the Tread of Population on the Land: American Examples"
at http://phe.rockefeller.edu/:

	"The declining intensity of lumber use helped American forests expand.
The abandonment of farmland returned relatively productive sites to
forest. The control of fires, restocking, plantations, and imports
helped as well. Mills lost less wood, converting former wastes into pulp
for paper, composites such as plywood which Americans substituted for
solid lumber, and heat and electricity; by 1980 American mills converted
more than 96 percent of the wood entering their doors into useful
products and energy (US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment 1984).
Together, these changes caused an expansion of American forests
commencing in the early 1920s. The trend continues: by 1992 the
inventory of growing stock in US forests was 27 percent larger than in
1952, the first year of comprehensive data collection (Sedjo 1991;
Smith, Faulkner, and Powell 1994). 


> But again, its all a red herring anyway. Whatever there is or was has *nothing*
> to do with our CO2 output. It was all here (a bit more or less) happily
> converting CO2 long before the fist US factory was built.

Then why bring the subject up? I was correcting an error in data you
introduced.

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> ... When we first came to this
> continent it was covered with forests, except for the Great
Plains in the
> middle, which was covered with bison. Forests covered the
entire eastern
> seaboard, which is now just one big city from Boston to DC. At
the time, the
> forests were just cleaing up all the CO2 the bison were putting
out. We replaced
> the bison with domesticated cattle, so there's no net gain
there. We cut down a
> lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are
cutting, so
> there's no net gain there.

BTW, in the USA, we're only cutting 65% of annual new growth.

Larry