Why you might want to ditch yours for a dumb one.
I hate cell phones, but once in a while I need a smart-phone feature. But I generally only use it when I’m traveling. As I’ve noted in the past, young people have no conception of what good phone service is like.
This article is amusing:
CosmoCourse CEO Pavel Pushkin told Sputnik New Agency, he came up with the idea of suborbital tourism back in 2013 when he was working at Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.
“We were reviewing various concepts of commercial space rockets and came up with the idea of launching people into space via suborbital trajectory.”
Wow, as far back as 2013! What a visionary.
Note that it’s short on details.
A long but very interesting piece on the overconfidence of the incompetent, by David Dunning (of Dunning-Kruger fame). For some reason, I think it has some relevance to the Trump phenomenon, and politics in general.
For the record, I have never had a problem claiming my ignorance on a topic.
Is there a cure for it?
I suffer from it and it’s only getting worse. I change my opinion about Donald almost every five minutes – and I can’t be the only one. There may be millions of us. For some it’s even more problematic. These people are not Trumpophrenic. They are Trumpophobic. And, if this Drudge link has any veracity, they have taken their problem to their shrinks.
I haven’t gone that far – yet. But I am searching for a cure for Trumpophrenia before I have to reach for the Haldol. If he becomes president, I don’t want any of us to become real life schizophrenics ourselves, unable to predict what our leader will say or do next.
But basically I think he’s a good guy and his heart is the right place. His instincts for making America great again are also basically good. So I will make my plea. Donald, you and only you are the cure for Trumpophrenia. Do it. Take us out of our misery. If you want to be president, start acting like one. Now.
He’s not capable of it. My opinion of Trump is actually quite steady. I’ve never had a high opinion of him, and the more I see of him the more loathsome the ignorant con artist grows to me. I keep hoping for that Face In The Crowd moment, but I fear it will never come.
[Afternoon update]
Today’s results may make that moment approach a little sooner. Cruz reportedly mopped up the floor with Trump in Kansas, 50-25, and he’s beating him in Maine as well.
This isn't like Hitler at all. https://t.co/wEHPLl94lJ
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) March 5, 2016
Less than an hour to go for the next SES-9 launch attempt by SpaceX. Eric Berger has the story.
I listened in by phone. Here‘s the white paper.
As one would expect, a consensus from thirteen space organizations is going to be mostly motherhood, and implicitly self contradictory. More after I’ve taken the time to go through it. Elliot Pulham said that the campaigns have received it with “gratitude and interest,” but as he said, the main goal is not so much to inject space into the campaigns as to prevent people from saying stupid things about it. Good luck with that.
Berin Szoka lays out the scenarios:
PLAN A: Stop Trump before the convention (5%?)
PLAN B: Deny him a majority, forge an alliance to pick anyone else (20%?)
PLAN C: Sane Republicans reform as the Conservative/Constitutional Party, deny either Hillary or Trump a majority of electoral votes (it would have to be a swing state, unless Trump is sweeping those, which is quite possible), which kicks the election to the House, where Republicans would elect the Conservative/Constitutional alternative to Trump (30%)
PLAN D: Use a Hillary presidency to catalyze the party around a new set of ideas, that respond to profound economic discontent without resorting to racism, protectionism or demagoguery. Paul Ryan leads what the Gingrich Revolution should have been. (25%)
PLAN E: Batten down the hatches and prepare to ride out a
or a Trumpclear winter. Keep a list of Trump’s Vichycon collaborators for purging when The Occupation ends. (20%)
A would be nice but almost certainly won’t happen. B just might. C may well be our best hope. D may be what the GOP really needs. E absolutely terrifies me — not just in terms of the 4-8 years of a Trump reign, but in terms of its long-term consequences for American politics.
My preference is obviously (A), but that seems unlikely at this point.
We may be able to turn it off, and reverse it. I’ve always been amused by (in Clarke’s words) the “distinguished elderly [or not so elderly] scientists” who think that the laws of physics require our bodies to deteriorate over time.
Via Glenn, who has some further thoughts.
No, we can’t “just” throw our trash into the sun.
But I hate when people use current launchers to demonstrate the cost of a massive space project. That’s not how it would be done. And I wish they’d simply say “the sun is the most expensive place to get in the solar system.” Because it is.
Space News has a story on Bridenstine’s proposed legislation.
I’ll have to take a look at the actual draft bill, but it has some good things, and some not so good. I don’t think that SSA should be simply handed over to the FAA. I don’t think that FAA should even be involved in launch licensing. If we’re going to be making radical changes in structure, it’s time to seriously consider a U.S. Space Guard.