All posts by Rand Simberg

Administrative

Back In The US of A

3 Comments

We just landed in New York from London, and have been up for 18 hours. The bad news: We still have a six-hour flight to LA, which gets in at 2 AM. The good news? We got upgraded.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, the other bad news. The plane is late.

[Saturday-morning update]

OK, the good news is that the plane was just a few minutes late, and we got into LA pretty much on time. The better news is that with our business-class upgrade, which allowed me to fully recline, I actually slept on a plane for the first time in my life. I’m up at 8 AM in CA (it’s 4 PM in London), making coffee and getting my body on Pacific time, ASAP. Hopefully by Monday with a good night’s sleep tonight.

American seems to have

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Moon Or Mars?

10 Comments

The latest on the issue.

It’s a pointless discussion, because it presumes it’s going to be a government program: Apollo back tot the moon again, or Apollo to Mars. We need to be developing capabilities to go wherever we want, affordably. Then let the people paying for it decide.

Related: Howard Bloom says that NASA needs to get out of the rocket business, and start working on an actual superhighway in space. I’m not sure I want Marshall in charge of that, though. To put it mildly.

Administrative, Culinary

Travel Update

12 Comments

We celebrated New Years Eve in Paris, in a sixth-floor apartment we rented with a view of the Eiffel Tower. It’s just a couple blocks from the Sorbonne and the Pantheon.

Unfortunately, it’s socked in, but we could see the lights through the mist. They started sparkling an hour before midnight, and then again as the hour hit. Not a lot of fireworks here, but we saw a few out that window, and others out the loft window toward Notre Dame. But the Parisians were cheering in the streets.

The trip has been pretty much stab/explosion/truck-attack free so far. Apparently they weren’t so fortunate in Istanbul; the Jayvee team struck again last night.

But it’s cold. Below freezing last night, and probably tonight as well. But we’re cozy, and we’ll be going out this afternoon to check out the Cathedral. But right now we’re heating croissants in the oven and making scrambled eggs with Welsh cheddar, and gravlox from Norway, with leftover oven-fried potatoes from dinner last night.

[Update a few minutes later]

Oh, and bonne annee to my readers.

[Monday-morning update]

Yes, speaking from current experience, international travel is so much better than it used to be.

We’re off to the Louvre. We could walk, but it’s rainy and chilly. We’ll probably take Uber.