Richard Gere: “He doesn’t appear to have the solutions that everyone thought.”
Not everyone, Richard. Only fools like you.
Category Archives: Popular Culture
The Latest Review Of “The Martian”
From space historian, and mission controller Jim Oberg. Interesting discussion in comments.
[Tuesday-afternoon update]
Another review, from Alex Knapp.
[Bumped]
The Lions
Don’t have game on teevee, but play by play looks like nothing is happening on the ground. Hard to win when it has to be all through the air.
Ohio State
Wow, they were lucky to pull that game out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen their offense play such a terrible game. A one-score win on a 34-point spread.
The Martian And Real Mars Missions
I’m a little behind on my reading of The Space Review, but last week, Eric Sterner cautioned (as Keith Cowing has been doing repeatedly) space enthusiasts not to imagine that the movie will somehow sell NASA programs or budgets. Note the discussion about lack of redundancy in comments. Weir’s scenario assumes that NASA is going to do Apollo to Mars. The purpose of my Kickstarter project is to show why that shouldn’t and probably won’t ever happen. And there’s also this:
Do people who support NASA's fake #JourneyToMars realize how few astronaut opportunities it entails? https://t.co/n4mugagjsr
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 14, 2015
The Case Against The GOP Establishment
Yes, this. I’ve been having a lot of this false-choice and other fallacious arguments with a lot of idiots on Twitter.
The Martian
Here’s the first review of the full movie I’ve seen, over at Mashable.
I’m not a big Damon fan, because his politics annoy me, but it sounds like he did a good job.
The Rise Of Cultural Libertarians
I meant to link this a couple weeks ago, but neglected to. Being cultural authoritarians is just one of the many ways that Social Justice Warriors are not liberal.
Why We Can’t Go To Mars
Yet…
Stephen Fleming gave a talk on that subject at Dragoncon this weekend (I should go some time). I haven’t looked at them yet, but his slides are on line, and I suspect there’s some good input to the Kickstarter there.
[Update a few minutes later]
Still haven’t been through slides, but I’m amused to see that he stole my graphical book-cover them in the very first one.
[Reading through]
I’d note that in his slides on the “Martian Defense Grid,” someone on the Mars panel at the AIAA meeting last week called Mars our “Jamestown.” High casualties to initial pioneers.
[Update a few more minutes later]
I wish we could show those charts of the unknown shape of the health/gravity curves to Congress. It makes a powerful case for a gravity lab, but only to people who actually give a damn about Mars. Actually, someone should show them to Elon.
The Politics Of Star Trek
When he told me he was doing this a few weeks ago, I was tempted to think that Tim Sandefur had too much time on his hands, but it’s actually an interesting essay.
[Saturday-morning update]
Megan Geuss binge watched the whole series in order for the first time. It’s an interesting take.
[Bumped]