We’ve come a long way.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
California High-Speed Land Grab
Despite the fact that the project is essentially dead, the state is continuing to move forward with eminent domain.
4K Televisions
Why you shouldn’t buy one this year.
In addition to the standards issues, I don’t think there’s much content yet.
Derailing High-Speed Rail
I’m glad that the idiotic project is dead, but it should have died for sensible reasons, instead of being strangled by California’s (and the federal government’s) own red tape:
Our legal systems are increasingly so cumbersome, so slow and so expensive that they are a serious drag on productivity and growth. Just as teachers unions oppose reforming public schools that cost too much and do too little, professors and administrators fight to preserve a dysfunctional university system, and a multitude of vested interests drive up costs in the health system, the “legal system lobby” is more interested in the financial health and social power of its members than in the public good.
The whole system, both in California and in DC, needs an overhaul.
High-Speed Rail
Here’s hoping that this is the death blow:
California Gov. Jerry Brown can not spend state bond revenues on President Obama’s signature transportation project until the state can identify how they will pay for the entire $68 billion project, a California court ruled Monday. The decision almost certainly spells death for the project.
This August, Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled that the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) “abused its discretion by approving a funding plan that did not comply with the requirements of the law.”
Abusing their discretion to not comply with the law is what Democrats do. Fortunately, they haven’t completely packed the judiciary. Yet.
An Underwater Hotel
A new one.
I think they’ll find, as they did in Key Largo, that they’ll have to put curtains on the windows for those people who aren’t exhibitionists, and don’t want the dolphins to watch them copulate.
The Starship Enterprise
ObamaCare isn’t one:
The technocratic idea is that you put a bunch of smart, competent people in government — folks who really want the thing to work — and they’ll make it happen. But “smart, competent people” are not a generic quantity; they’re incredibly domain-specific. Most academics couldn’t run a lemonade stand. Most successful entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to muster the monomaniacal devotion needed to get a Ph.D. Neither group produces many folks who can consistently generate readable, engaging writing on a deadline. And none of us would be able to win a campaign for Congress.
Yet in my experience, the majority of people in these domains think that they could do everyone else’s job better, if they weren’t so busy with whatever it is they’re doing so well. It’s the illusion of omnicompetence, and in the case of HealthCare.gov, it seems to have been nearly fatal.
Remember, Obama was a better speech writer than his speech writers, knew policy better than his policy advisors, would make a better chief of staff than his chief of staff. He is the Dunning-Kruger effect personified.
ObamaCaliforniaCare
As is noted there, Krugman told us Enron was working fine, too.
23 And Me
I think that the FDA is a much greater danger to public health than DNA testing. It needs to be reined in.
SpaceX SES-8 Launch
The webcast has started, and they’re currently go for launch in about half an hour. It will take a while before they know if they’re successful, because they have to do a restart this time — it’s a mission requirement.
[Update a couple minutes later]
This is a little annoying. The webcast stalls every few seconds, and I have to hit pause/play to get it going again.