Looks like Bezos really is shaking things up. I’ll be curious to see what it does for their circulation.
Category Archives: Business
New Business Creation
We’re not number one:
A new study by the World Bank and the International Finance Corp. found that the U.S. ranks well behind countries like Rwanda, Belarus and Azerbaijan in terms of how easy it is for an entrepreneur to start a new business. The U.S. did narrowly beat Uzbekistan, though.
So we have that going for us.
Space Journalism
Why oh why do reporters imagine that cosmologists know anything about spacecraft?
Dr Xing Li, an Aberystwyth University expert on astrophysics and cosmology, said as a scientist it would be “beautiful” to be one of SpaceShipTwo’s privileged passengers.
But SpaceShipTwo travels at a super-sonic 2,500mph – more than four times faster than a passenger jet – and Dr Li believes it’s difficult to imagine anything that goes at that speed becoming affordable.
He said: “Now we don’t have supersonic flights because of the cost issue. At the moment I don’t see that it will be possible even in 30 or 40 years. It will only happen if we have some technological advance that would bring down the cost.”
Ask a frickin’ engineer, not a scientist.
Famous Movie Quotes
Graphically depicted. Funny stuff.
Up With The Poor
Down with the LA Times.
It really is embarrassing that we have such an awful newspaper in the second-largest city in the country. Of course, the one in the largest city is pretty bad, too.
ObamaCare
Resolved: It is now beyond rescue.
The question is, will what replaces it be even worse?
Scaled’s Motor-Test Logs
Doug Messier analyzes.
Though I’d like to be, it’s hard to be optimistic about Virgin getting to space this year.
Mars Or Bust
NPR has a story on various peoples’ plans, including Mars One.
ASAP And My Book
Over at Space Politics, Jeff Foust follows up on his book review from yesterday.
No, Vance Brand
Safety should not be NASA’s highest priority. That way lies stagnation.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hey, Vance, was safety “the highest priority” for Apollo 8?