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One of my favorite movies was The Hunt for Red October. In it, Sean Connery plays a Soviet sub commander in control of a nearly silent intercontinental ballistic submarine. Its silence comes from a hypothetical magnetohydrodynamic drive that had no propellers. But this was all fiction, wasn’t it?

When I was in high school, our science team took a trip to Fermi lab and Argonne National Laboratories up near Chicago. I was captivated. I still remember the discussion on subatomic particles by the Fermi lab speaker and seeing some of the devices such as the Tevatron. I still remember him talking about plans for an even larger collider being planned in Europe (hint, they built it).

At Argonne labs, we took another tour. At one point, we went into one of the large warehouse labs and there was a giant circular machine. The guide told us it was, in fact, an experimental magnetohydrodynamic drive. He shared some interesting anecdotes about the device. It turns out, the principles were sound. By creating a gigantic magnetic field one could indeed introduce thrust from salt-water passed through the center of it. If you want to make one, it is not complex and there are even YouTube videos demonstrating small devices.

The biggest problem? It wasn’t very fast, and you needed a GIANT magnetic field. It also didn’t work in fresh water and had a variety of other limitations and caveats.

The Japanese experimented with the technology as well and there were numerous prototypes developed. They also ran into the same problems but it did advance the field a bit by using smaller and more powerful superconducting magnetic systems to introduce the field. It works fairly well on a small scale, but pushing something as large as a transport ship or ballistic missile submarine was untenable. Not much has happened since those days as the physics of the system simply don’t work out – though China recently announced their experiments.

Still, it was absolutely fascinating to see something that was on movies and hinted at as secret technology in person. I think it was a big part of what got me interested in science and led me to computer science years later.

There has also a lot of suggestions that The Hunt for Red October book, publish from a nobody salesman via the Navy Institute Press, contained then-classified secrets, and happened at the same time of several strange submarine incidents was actually a ploy to signal certain messages to the Soviet Union. Since Tom Clancy recently died, we may never know for sure. But it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened.

Links:

• https://onepetro.org/ISOPEIOPEC/proceedings-abstract/ISOPE94/All-ISOPE94/ISOPE-I-94-182/26362

Unreal just gave a great multi-hour presentation at GDC on all the new technology in the Unreal Engine.

I saw the show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind in the early 2000’s in Chicago. In their show, you see 30 original plays in 60 minutes. Things start out unusual right off the bat. Audience members line up for admission and roll a die for their admission price. Once you get briefed on the ground rules, you shout out the numbers of the two-minute plays they want to see performed next. Each play is written and acted by the ensemble and what you see constantly evolves as they cast creates new plays all the time. If you’d like to read some of them, a set of them is available on Playscripts to read/license.

It was the longest running show in Chicago theater history and is now also in New York and San Francisco. While a great premise, lots of energy, and the show I attended a lot of fun – you should expect to get plays around very particular and homogenous political/social viewpoints by a cast of mostly very young actors.

Infinite Wrench

Behind the scenes, however, there were problems almost immediately (definitely worth a read). The show idea was founded by Greg Allen and rocketed to local popularity. As it grew, he moved to a new venue and formed an ensemble to perform it every day. Sadly, it turned into a classic example of a idealistic collectivist vision that quickly degraded into relatively predictable battles of egos, control, and ugliness.

“He started this company with this very egalitarian concept,” said former ensemble member Andy Bayiates. “We won’t have any leaders and we’ll have a collective and we’ll do everything together. But his actions never matched up with that vision.”

The conflicts started almost immediately. There were conflicts on expanding the franchise that might put ensemble pay structures at risk, views that Allen was cashing in on the licensing and work of the individual ensemble members, he often ‘forgot’ the lines to 2 minute plays he didn’t like, wished to retain final right of refusal on direction and which individual plays were made, personal clashes, and other issues. The ensemble documented the problems with Allen and in Dec. 2011 came the final disagreement over a play featured in a “best of” anniversary show that lead to Allen’s suspension from the company.

In 2016, Greg Allen revoked the Chicago branch’s rights to the play after “considerable artistic differences and irreconcilable personal conflicts”. The Chicago branch now performs an almost identical show called the Infinite Wrench.

Collectivism is hard

This is sad but shouldn’t be a surprise. The rise and fall of the Soviet Union took only 68 years but killed millions of its own citizens in political gulags, poor management, and ethnic cleansings. China’s politically brutal regime also killed millions, lasted barely longer, led to decades of stagnant development, and has largely abandoned communism for heavily controlled capitalism. The Communist revolution of Laos gave us the killing fields of Pol Pot. North Korea stands out with growing humanitarian crises, lack of development, nuclear blustering, and rule by dictatorship. Steve Jobs who lived at and was inspired by the farm commune All One Farm (owned by Robert Friedland) but by many accounts of those that worked for him often painted him as a dictator. Sadly, egalitarian societies in the 20th century have almost universally turned into the most brutal regimes in all of human history.

There is only one form of living collectivism that has withstood time. In fact, it has lasted longer than any country or collective group on earth – monasteries. But even in those, there is clear hierarchy and rules. Something to consider the next time you want to make a collectivist group.

Link:

• Too Much Light brings out schism of Neo-futurists
• https://www.neogregallen.com/

You can use noise dampening curtains, or maybe even try this handy window inserts that use rubber edges to pop in and out of your window frames easily.