If Trump really is an Ayn Rand fan, I suspect it’s because (like other Democrats) he views The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as how-to manuals, rather than cautionary tales.
Category Archives: Economics
Nuclear Power
Why it’s time to dispel the myths about it.
Long past time, I’d say. The Guardian has had surprisingly good science and technology coverage lately.
Elon’s Good Week
First he sells several billion dollars worth of cars, then he lands a rocket on a ship, live on television, while throwing a private expandable hab into orbit.
From SpaceX’s standpoint, they now have another used rocket that they will almost certainly refly, for testing if not another operational mission.
If I could retweet this x100 I would. Space Access! https://t.co/oWuMBkj8tO
— The High Frontier (@thehighfrontier) April 8, 2016
[Update a while later]
I tweeted prior to flight that they were probably expecting a successful landing, given that (unlike last time) they weren’t downplaying chances of success. Nice to see Elon confirm that.
[Update a few minutes later]
The Minimum Wage
The good and the bad.
It’s not virtuous, it’s just virtue signaling.
Graphene
Is there anything it can’t do?
“It’s 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger,” Stetson explained to Reuters. “The energy that’s required and the pressure that’s required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less.”
Faster, please. This would help people world wide, but we could use it in coastal CA as well.
No Sex Dolls, Please
This tech is inevitable, barring a civilizational collapse. Which it may cause.
Close Calls In Space
A nice poster from S&MA at JSC.
We need a lot more of these. https://t.co/eBTcCPSC6a
— SafeNotAnOption (@SafeNotAnOption) April 5, 2016
Trump’s Campaign Staff
Remember, he hires the best people.
Remember when Obama’s people claimed that he could manage the government because his campaign was being run so well? Well, Trump can’t even manage a campaign.
[Update mid-afternoon]
Why I’ve changed my mind on Trump:
I realized — like I was shot with a diamond bullet — that there is no “there” there. Trump has no ideas, no philosophy, and no governing principles. He is little more than a salesman selling himself. He is a hollow man, a stuffed man, headpiece filled with straw.
Not only doesn’t he know much, he doesn’t care to find out, which is much worse to my mind. Read this article from Spengler about how Trump doesn’t read. (“What I noticed immediately in my first visit was that there were no books,” says D’Antonio. “A huge palace and not a single book.”) If somebody like this were to run the foreign policy of the world’s most powerful country, it would be an unmitigated disaster. In a narcissistic fit, he may start World War III without a clue as to what to do after it begins. Only then will it dawn on him that not everything in the world is a transactional deal.
Once I realized this, other examples became evident. There are Trump’s extensive ties with top Democrats, like Senator Harry Reid and the Clinton family, as well as establishment Republican figures like Senator Mitch McConnell. There is also his (very recent) past support of left-wing causes, including illegal immigration. Most tastelessly, he has personally attacked conservatives who have been fighting the good fight for a lot longer than Donald Trump has, and with much fewer resources. Take his disgraceful feud with Michelle Malkin. Donald, Michelle was pulling her weight back when you were cutting checks to Anthony Weiner and employing illegal aliens.
A con man, a show man, and empty-headed buffoon.
Where Is Superman When We Need Him?
A bald supervillain threatens to destroy California.
Heh.
Pro tip to Jerry Brown: If something doesn’t make sense economically, it can’t possibly make sense morally or socially. It just destructive virtue signalling that wrecks lives (particularly those of young people).
Blue Origin’s Plans
An update from Eric Berger in the wake of the successful third flight of New Shepard. The long setback to reusability caused by the Shuttle is finally coming to an end.
[Update a few minutes later]
I wrote a piece a while ago with this theme, but I may have never published it:
Some people have also questioned whether it’s safe to reuse rockets, but Bezos thinks that perception will flip 180 degrees. “That is an argument that’s been made, but I have a different opinion,” he said. “I would much rather fly in a used 787 than on that 787’s first flight. Let somebody else take that first flight. Look, the fact that you just flew it yesterday means that it’s probably really good to fly right now. And that’s going to be true of rocket vehicles, too. In the future, because of reusability, nobody with a really expensive satellite is going to want to put it on an unused rocket. They’re going to decide that’s too risky. Now that will take a while, but that’s what’s going to happen.”
…”Our first orbital vehicle will not be our last, and it will be the smallest orbital vehicle we will ever build,” Bezos said. And to make it all affordable, says the man who has upended online retailing with Amazon.com, rockets must launch, land, and then fly again. When he’s asked about plans by government agencies and others to build large, expendable rockets, Bezos seems unable to understand that kind of business practice in the 21st century.
“What I know you cannot afford is throwing the hardware away,” he said. “Hardware is so expensive. Look around at the precision you see here. The turbopumps with beautifully machined propellers. It’s just a tragedy to throw all of that away. You can never make a step function change in cost if you’re throwing the hardware away.”
In a couple decades, people will marvel at the stubborn persistence some in throwing expensive hardware away.