Jack K. Horner's Page

Recent TV ads offer what appears to be a phone service for $20 a year, using a device I will call a "V-plug". A V-plug is one implementation of a technology/standard called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Basically, a VoIP system converts normal telephone electrical signals into data that can be transmitted over the Internet. At the receiving end, the data is reconverted to rings, dial tones, busy-signals, or audio, as appropriate.

To use a V-plug, you have to have a conventional telephone… Continue

The short answer is (a) global warming is real, regardless of what the email may say, and (b) it's not clear that the authors of that email did anything illegitimate.

Global warming is a fact. Arctic ice is melting, and the average temperature of the atmosphere has been increasing since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (about 1750) -- to the best of our knowledge, at a rate 100 times the rate before 1750. These changes can be measured directly, and no one who can read a thermometer di… Continue

It has been suggested that we could solve the carbon sequestration problem
simply by planting more green plants. That approach, unfortunately, is a
"sneeze in a hurricane". The planet's entire green plant mass, together
with the ocean (which is capable of sequestering only ~25% of the current
carbon production), cannot keep pace with the atmospheric CO2 concentration
growth rate. The atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing at the rate of
~1% per year ([1]); the growth is due almost entirely… Continue

Based on prophesies of the Mayans, the writings of Nostradamus (a 16th-century French mystic), or on various sacred texts, some people believe that cataclysmic disasters will occur in 2012. Is any of this reasonable?

We can expect something undesirable to happen in 2012 because something undesirable has happened in every year of recorded history. With practical certainty, moreover, we can predict 2012 will be a year in which earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, and wars will occur, ju… Continue

I'm no fan of some of the practices of big pharmaceutical companies, but the current economic/legal environment makes those companies ineffective as demons, regardless of their intentions.

"Big pharma", as used here, refers to the largest five pharmaceutical companies. Their revenues collectively constitute ~90% of the non-generic pharmaceutical market worldwide.

We can estimate the big pharma research and development (R&D) investment rate fairly easily. It's no more than 20% of gross reve… Continue