A first-hand account from Houstonian and amateur (but competent) meterorologist Eric Berger. This will certainly be the costliest storm in US history to date.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Michael Mann versus Joe Bastardi. One is a “climate scientist,” the other understands how weather works.
… had its first captive carry flight in years today. I disagree that the big test is whether it can launch on an Atlas V (though there may be aero issues). Its real big test, assuming successful drop tests, will be whether it can survive entry.
It took SpaceX to finally bring the ranges into the 21st century. This was first used at Vandenberg at the launch we attended a few weeks ago.
Evolution is running like molasses, chewing up CPU, apparently because it’s choking on half a million emails in my “Junk” folder. And I can’t clean them out because, you know, half a million messages in my Junk folder. I’ve tried loading the folder into a browser tab in roundcube, but it can’t open it either. Any ideas how to go in on the server directly and clean things up there? vi would be a nightmare.
An analyst says that it’s a virtually infinite source of oil.
There will be no peak oil, just peak oil demand. https://t.co/wmEDGeboJE
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 25, 2017
And it’s bad news for bad people around the world.
[Update a few minutes later]
Mexico’s largest shale field is now open for business. In theory, this should help the economy down there as well, and perhaps relieve the pressure to emigrate. But the place is still pretty corrupt.
My space take:
Distracted NASA pic.twitter.com/lI6vp6ctIw
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 25, 2017
This account of life there reads like something from the Soviet Union:
This is daft, certainly. Even funny, in a macabre way. But it also raises a serious point: the university experience in America is now not one that will adequately prepare students for real life. In real-life democracy, people disagree — and normally they don’t die or suffer emotional injury because of it. In normal life, there’s no reason not to like someone with whom you disagree politically. On campus, opinions are often ontology: you are what you think. But this is dangerous logic: if I hate what you think, I must hate what you are.
Who is going to want to hire these people?
[Update a few minutes later]
“American higher ed is rapidly becoming a worldwide joke. What if the high-dollar foreign students stop coming?”
[Update a couple minutes later]
This seems related: Video shows that Millennials support socialism even if it results in starvation.
Why we should expect scientists to disagree. In general, science is much more complex than many people are comfortable with.
Is there a libertarian case for reining them in?
I’m not going up to Vandenberg for the Formosat launch, but I’ll probably go to the beach (I’m assuming the marine layer will clear by then). I’d like to see SpaceX get to twenty flights this year, but I’d like even more to see them finally launch the heavy.
[Update a while later]
This is interesting, if true: Space will lose millions on this mission. Of course, it would have probably cost them a lot more to continue with the Falcon 1e. This is also the first time I’ve ever seen the marginal launch costs stated, at $37M. Also interesting, if correct.