Ron Bailey has a dispatch from last week’s transhumanist think-in in Chicago.
All posts by Rand Simberg
A New Oxymoron
Kind of like jumbo shrimp. An odorless durian? It seems to me that it sort of defeats the purpose. You can’t really separate odor from taste, because odor is a vital part of taste (people who can’t smell have taste suppression as well). It might be some interesting new fruit with an interesting taste, but it wouldn’t be durian.
Sociable Robots
A long but interesting article on the history, and current state of the art:
Cog was designed to learn like a child, and that
Space Utopianism
Thomas James righteously rails against it. If humans settle space, we will take human institutions with us, and the ones that have proven successful here will do so there as well.
You’d Think We Have Enough ITAR Problems
…without it being administered by imbeciles.
You’d Think We Have Enough ITAR Problems
…without it being administered by imbeciles.
You’d Think We Have Enough ITAR Problems
…without it being administered by imbeciles.
Bob And Bambi
Our deer management policies are insane, due to animal rights loonsactivists. And is Bob Byrd suffering from Lyme disease? Eric Scheie explains.
When I consider the current prices of beef, it seems a shame to let all that venison go to waste.
The Investigation Begins
Allison Gatlin has the latest on the test explosion in Mojave. There are quotes from Jeff Foust and Brett Alexander, including this one, with which I agree:
“Because of the nature of this accident, I think that there will be limited media attention from here on out of this accident,” Foust said. “I suspect that you’ll see a lot more coverage over the next few days of NASA’s peccadilloes – intoxicated astronauts and sabotaged computers – than you will of this accident. As a result, this is going to be out of the general public’s minds pretty quickly, outside of those directly affected by the accident.”
It’s ironic and amusing that NASA’s latest foibles may knock the biggest accident to affect NewSpace off the headlines, but I think he’s right.
[Update in the evening]
Aaaarrrgghhh…
This is one of my biggest pet peeves:
“Today, as we are focused on the human side of this mishap we can’t loose sight of what it is we choose to do and to whom we serve,” airport General Manager Stu Witt said Friday.
It’s bad enough when people do it on unedited internet fora, but you’d think that professional editors and reporters could get it right. I wonder if it’s going to become the accepted spelling, because we can no longer hold back the tide of ignorance?
And yes, I know it’s confusing, as demonstrated a few grafs later:
“Our nation enjoys the safest transportation system the world has known, largely because people like the ones who populate the companies engaged in systems research and testing at Mojave, Edwards and China Lake choose this location to practice their craft,” Witt said.
Same pronunciation, different spelling. Yes, English has idiosyncratic spelling conventions. But again, professional writers and editors are paid to know the difference.
Spaceship Enterprise
When I saw Glenn Reynolds in Dallas at the ISDC in May, he mentioned to me that he’d been reading a review copy of Rocketeers