I am going through an experience that I would find hilarious if it were happening to someone else. Maybe future me will laugh at it and write about it, after it’s stopped happening to current me.
Category Archives: Business
Off To Israel
I’m flying there tomorrow on business, back next Saturday. I’m thinking about renting a car. The rates seem pretty good (though I don’t know what the surcharges will be), and I can get supplemental insurance for $40 for the week. Anyone have any experience?
[Evening update]
OK, gotten a lot of useful feedback. Sounds like it would be manageable for me if it’s really no worse than south Florida with all the Haitians, but my new info is that they have a pretty good train system. If I were on vacation and wanting to explore, and into a terrifyingly entertaining experience, I’d definitely rent the car, but I’m there on business, and not moving around much. It looks to me like the best bet is to take a train from Ben-Gurion to Hertzlia, then a short cab to my hotel, and get around locally with cabs (and colleagues with whom I’m there on business). On Friday, my main day off, I could take train to airport to drop bag, then another to Jerusalem for sightseeing, then back to airport for flight home.
Virgin Galactic
…is taking over flight test from Scaled Composites. Sounds like they already know pretty much what the NTSB report will say. When it comes out, I may do a new edition of the book to incorporate the accident and investigation.
Planetary Boundaries, Tipping Points
…and prophets of doom.
Elon Musk’s War
The Outer-Space Internet
No, not Elon’s. The other one.
I wonder though, how realistic it is to think that Virgin Galactic can deliver the satellites, given their track record to date?
[Second link was wrong, fixed now.]
“I Was A Racist”
This is what happens when you value “social justice” over ethics and morality.
Quitting The EU
Tory Bruno
A story about his Twitter account. It is refreshing to be able to interact directly with a CEO like that. Of course, Elon has been doing it for years.
Climate Reporting
It’s a hot mess.
[Late-morning update]
A media round up, and some thoughts, from Judith Curry, on the State of the Union:
what is wrong with President Obama’s statements as cited above?
- His statement about humans having exacerbated extreme weather events is not supported by the IPCC
- The Pentagon is confusing climate change with extreme weather (see above)
- ‘Climate change is real’ is almost a tautology; climate has always changed and always will, independently of anything humans do.
- His tweet about ‘97%’ is based on an erroneous and discredited paper [link]
As for ‘Denial from Congress is dangerous’, I doubt that anyone in Congress denies that climate changes. The issue of ‘dangerous’ is a hypothetical, and relates to values (not science).
And speaking of the ‘deniers’ in Congress, did anyone spot any errors in the actual science from Senator Inhofe’s rebuttal?
The apparent ‘contract’ between Obama and his administrators to play politics with climate science seems to be a recipe for anti science and premature policies with negative economic consequences that have little to no impact on the climate.
BUt the important thing is that they line the pockets of his campaign contributors.
Maybe some day, in a future administration, we can have a grown up conversation about climate change (natural and human caused), the potential risks, and a broad range of policy responses.
Let’s hope.