Snow, And The Universe

May 3, 2013 Rand Simberg 2 Comments

It spent its fury on the southeastern part of the state, which got 15 inches of snow. All of which will melt and soak the soil and well, well, what do you know: the drought lifts. The dryness of the last few years is forgotten as the mean reasserts itself over the long run of the decade, which itself will be a wink, a blip, an inhalation to the next decades exhalation, just as the universe itself is a bang at the start and a great collapse at the end, like two flaps of a heart valve. Assuming there’s enough matter to cause the universe to contract, that is. I hope so. I hate the idea that it begins with a great gust of matter, spreads and cools and ends in silence. Because that would make the universe, in essence, a sneeze.

Geshundheit.

Culinary, Health, Space, Technology and Society

Organs And Tissues

May 3, 2013 Rand Simberg

From a 3-D printer. Also, printed meat, though that’s actually harder, surprisingly. Could be handy on a space ship, though.

Faster, please.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

Health Foods

May 2, 2013 Rand Simberg 7 Comments

That are killing you.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

AmericaSpace

May 2, 2013 Rand Simberg 53 Comments

In case anyone wondered why I haven’t commented (much) over there previously, and am probably not going to in the future, this thread is canonical. I can take the abuse, but that’s an hour or two of my life I won’t get back.

[Friday morning update]

Well, apparently I don’t have to worry about spending any more time over there — I seem to have been banned. I tried to respond to Jim’s latest nonsense, which was:

A orbital crewed rocket operating from US territory will have to meet all of NASA’s commercial crew guidelines or it won’t be allowed to launch. If SpaceX wants to launch from some other site, it can’t be stopped. It also will see its funding vaporize.

Also, don’t forget that, were there an accident on a non-NASA commercial crew rated launch, the launcher will be facing far more than civil fines, as will its leadership.

…and the comment didn’t show up. Fortunately, it wasn’t very long.

My response was something along the lines of “Jim, with all respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about. NASA has no authority to prevent a launch if it doesn’t affect NASA, and it has no “commercial guidelines.” Only the FAA determines whether or not a company gets a launch license, crewed or otherwise.”

This kind of ongoing and apparently irremediable ignorance is why I can’t take anything that Hillhouse writes seriously. He’s a perfect example of the old dictum about the problem not being what people don’t know, but what they know for damn sure, that is wrong.

[Mid-morning update]

Heh. Someone calling himself “Wolfgang Pauli” commented in response to Hillhouse’s nonsense: “Not even wrong.”

I doubt that either Jason or Jim will get the joke, though.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Oil And Gas

May 2, 2013 Rand Simberg 4 Comments

The new green energy:

…as profits from wind, solar, biofuels and other alternatives consistently fell short of expectations — and as the fossil fuel business boomed — things got complicated. Venture capitalists and other investment funds started stretching the definition of clean technology almost beyond recognition in an effort to make money while clinging to their environmental ideals.

Today, clean technology investment funds are not trying to replace the fossil fuel industry, they’re trying to help it by financing companies that can make mining and drilling less dirty. The people running these funds acknowledge the apparent hypocrisy, but defend a more liberal definition of clean technology.

“Oil and gas will be with us for a long time. If we can clean that up we will do the world a great service,” says Wal van Lierop, CEO of Chrysalix, a Vancouver, Canada-based venture capital firm founded in 2001.

Shat a shock, that profits “consistently fell short of expectations.” Perhaps, like the president and his campaign-donating cronies, they had unrealistic expectations. Or more likely for the latter, they just expected the taxpayer to make up the difference.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Starting To Speak

May 2, 2013 Rand Simberg 23 Comments

“When you are on the ground, you depend on each other — we’re gonna get through this situation. But when you look up and then nothing outside of the stratosphere is coming to help you or rescue you, that’s a bad feeling,” one source said:

On the night of the Benghazi terror attack, special operations put out multiple calls for all available military and other assets to be moved into position to help — but the State Department and White House never gave the military permission to cross into Libya, sources told Fox News.

But, but, I thought the president gave orders to do everything possible?!

And then there’s this:

“They had no plan. They had no contingency plan for if this happens, and that’s the problem this is going to face in the future,” one source said. “They’re dealing with more hostile regions, hostile countries. This attack’s going to happen again.”

And unfortunately, they don’t have much of a learning curve.

[Update a few minutes later]

Only six months late:

Confirmed: Obama’s denial of cross border authority killed 2 and abandoned 30 Americans in Benghazi

Couldn’t have the media discussing it then, though — it might have hurt Obama’s election chances.

Business, Economics, Education, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Fifty To One

May 2, 2013 Rand Simberg 1 Comment

A new climate education project:

50 to 1 cuts across all the noise and fury surrounding the ‘climate debate’ and gets right to the point: Even if the IPCC is right, and even if climate change IS happening and it IS caused by man, we are STILL better off adapting to it as it happens than we are trying to ‘stop’ it. ‘Action’ is 50 times more expensive than ‘adaptation’, and that’s a conclusion which is derived directly from the IPCC’s own predictions and formulae!

Here’s a link to the Indiegogo site.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

ObamaCare

May 2, 2013 Rand Simberg 3 Comments

Just how ignorant is its namesake about it?

Well, to be fair, he could be just lying.

[Update a while later]

Unravel it, and you get a train wreck.

Actually, you get a train wreck just in trying to implement it:

Baucus isn’t the only Capitol Hill Democrat worried about a “train wreck,” according to The Hill. Even those not yet on Capitol Hill have distanced themselves from the unpopular program. Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Democrat running for a House seat in a South Carolina special election, called the ACA “extremely problematic.”

As 2014 draws ever closer, and the true scale of the problems of ObamaCare become apparent, expect more Democratic incumbents to commiserate with their constituents about the “extremely problematic” “train wreck” they imposed on them. They had better not expect the voters to let them off the hook, however, no matter how many times Obama tells them they have nothing to worry about.

Everyone running next year against an opponent who voted for this monstrosity should make it a focus of their campaign. Even if the opponent renounces their own vote to attempt to save their seat (that’s the polite word…), their judgment should be called into question.

Transterrestrial Musings