In Vino Veritas
MACKEY MUST BE DRUNK:
In an interview about the "Collapse of Overpass in California Becomes Lesson in Construction";
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june07/overpass_05-10.html
I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mackey is drunk.
Well, you're half right.
I'm back, and well on my way to being drunk. I do this for two reasons -- drinking, I mean:
1. The depth of confirmation bias displayed by the Truth Movement makes my head hurt, and alcohol numbs the pain.
Seriously. "Steel melted!" you crow. Not based on a paper, not based on a formal presentation, just a few comments. That's what you've got. You don't know how much steel, where, or why, but you don't care. The only reason you care is because someone (us) said otherwise. Epic Pwnage is in your grasp!
Except you've forgotten that there's an entire wing of the Truth Movement dedicated to repeating the mantra that "NIST recovered no steel that exceeded 250oC!!" Well, that was always false, but I don't have to explain why anymore. You've done it for me! So the next time Kevin Ryan or Tony Szamboti repeats that tired refrain, allow me to refer them to you. Congratulations, you now agree with us.
See, what makes no sense is that you folks come to us arguing both sides of the same coin. "NIST's steel was colder than NIST said." And now "NIST's steel was hotter that NIST said." A normal, rational person might take some time to resolve these contradictory positions before squawking about them, but not you guys!
But I forgive you. I know why you do it -- you come to us with whatever confusions you have because you know we've got the answers. There's no point bringing this up to Steven Jones or Judy Wood or what have you, and you know it. They'll give you some doubletalk and try to accomodate both positions, and you'll learn nothing. We won't, and we don't. It's just too bad you seem locked in a learning cycle forever.
All of this makes me sad. Which brings me to the other reason for inebriation, which is to prove a point:
2. Even to a drunken man, your ideas make no sense.
Earlier tonight, I asked you to answer where Dr. Astaneh-Asl got his steel from. I was going to lead you gradually to an understanding, but it's taking too long and you won't enjoy it anyway, so I'll just say it. He got his steel by setting up shop near the steel recyclers. At the end of the salvage process. There's advantages to doing this, but you need to keep in mind that any steel he got was damaged while standing, damaged as the Pile burned, and subjected to the full chaos of recovery operations. There's no way whatsoever for Dr. Astaneh-Asl to disambiguate between "melting" suffered while the building stood, and "melting" afterwards. He didn't get to see it in place.
But that's not where I wanted to lead you. The real question, the coup de grace, is this: "What happened to the steel after Dr. Astaneh-Asl handled it?" He's talking about all this "melted" and "vaporized" steel -- where is it? Can we see it?
Indeed we can. Class, please open your books to NCSTAR1-3.
The steel that you're talking about was turned over to NIST, where it was examined in detail, and reported on. With pictures. Now, Dr. Astaneh-Asl is a sharp guy, and we can learn a lot from him, but he's not a metallurgist, and he didn't examine the steel thoroughly.
What you're working from are his initial comments. NIST did more, and found that, well, what do you know, it didn't melt after all. Or vaporize. Snicker.
NIST instead does report on "melting," i.e. eutectic action, concluding it happened in the Pile fire and is not relevant in terms of understanding the collapses. Take a look for yourself. We already know this happens, because of Dr. Barnett and Dr. Biederman's work. No mysteries here except to the uneducated and misinformed. Your team.
The only way for your ideas to make sense is if Dr. Astaneh-Asl's steel was different from the NIST steel. It isn't so. He didn't smuggle it home in a suitcase. Nor did NIST decide, in its evil power, to hide some of it so it could spin some alternate story, daring Dr. Astaneh-Asl to call them on it. Why would they? The temperatures involved in melting are actually not implausible, nor incompatible with the core NIST hypothesis. Vaporizing, well yeah, that's a poser, but that doesn't work for anybody's theory, except the space-beamers and nuke-huggers...
Did this happen? Did NIST bury evidence? Why not ask him? Check this out, all you have to do is get Dr. Astaneh-Asl to say "those fiends! They stole the evidence! I had it in my hands!!" Ask him.
He won't. You know how I know? Because he's read NIST cover to cover, like me, and he's been very critical of it. But he's never said that. Dr. Greening presented some of Dr. Astaneh-Asl's objections, and they bear some examination. He believes, possibly, the NIST Report was structured to deemphasize design flaws in the original structure. This could be true.
"Melting" and vaporizing steel, not true.
If even a drunken man can follow this path of reasoning, you should have no trouble with it at all. Impress me.
