Category Archives: Science And Society

General, Science And Society

News I Can Use

12 Comments

Sort of.

I had my eyes checked last week (for the first time in three or four years) and discovered that I’m color blind. Sort of. It’s minor enough that it’s never been an issue from a functional standpoint, apparently, and this is the first time that I’ve ever had this problem diagnosed. I went on line to check out some of the tests to confirm it, and I do show up as red-green color blind, but only mildly. That is, I can sometimes make out the things that normal sighted are supposed to see, but some of them just barely very dim, and I can see some (but not all) of the numbers that true red-green color blind people aren’t supposed to at all. On the ones that have one number for normal, and a different one for color-blind, I see the color-blind one more clearly, but I can actually see both. And I’ve never had any trouble distinguishing red from green traffic lights (which would be the biggest problem, I would think, though fully color-blind people know from position). When I look at the pictures that show what the world looks like to normal and deficient eyes, I can very clearly see the vivid red dress as red, whereas it should be more of a greenish color if I were fully color blind. I wonder what this page looks like to someone with no red receptors? Are both pictures the same? And it makes me wonder what the red dress would look like to someone with normal vision (something I’ve never wondered before, because I’ve always thought I had normal vision).

So, the question is, have I always had this borderline condition, and it’s only become apparent now, or was I much better in my youth (I never failed a test as a kid) and have deteriorated a lot with mileage? I’m guessing that maybe I was always borderline, but far enough over the border toward normal earlier that I always passed the test, not realizing that I could have been seeing the numbers more clearly had my color sight been better, and perhaps with age, I’ve drifted into a region where I don’t fully pass any more, but am still a long way from being unable to distinguish red from green.

Anyway, the opthalmologist recommended a follow-up visit to a neuro-opthalmologist, just to make sure that there wasn’t something else going on (just as a precaution, because it’s unlikely that it’s caused by anything serious).

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

Safe, Simple, Soon

4 Comments

Now, the “off-the-shelf” five-segment first stage for the Ares 1 is going to a new propellant formulation, for environmental reasons. No, that won’t take long or cost much to develop or test. And apparently we don’t even have the capability in country to do it currently — we have to rely on the Swedes.

If they were worried about the environment, they shouldn’t have gone with a solid in the first place.

How long before this monstrosity is put out of its (and our) misery? They need to just take the whole concept out behind the VABarn and put it down with a sledge hammer.

History, Philosophy, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Living On Mars

3 Comments

Some thoughts from Bob Zubrin, who apparently has a new book
out on the subject.

I have to say, though, that when he says:

It’s a common view that Columbus was just interested in finding a spice route to the Indies, and that was his sales pitch to the Spanish courts. But I actually believe that contrary to conventional history, Columbus was looking for unknown continents — he just couldn’t pitch it that way.

I’d be curious to know the basis for that belief, or if it’s just wishful thinking or projection. My reading of the history does not indicate that Columbus was averse to making a buck.

Political Commentary, Science And Society

Still Giving Them Hell

25 Comments

Freeman Dyson continues to refuse to be part of the “consensus”:

Wearing an effusively-colored tie that set off his gray suit, Mr. Dyson began his talk at the Nassau Club by encouraging the audience to interrupt him as he spoke, since, he declared, “it’s much more fun to have an argument than do a monologue.”

In the absence of audience interruptions, Mr. Dyson had an argument anyway with the scores of people (like Al Gore) who weren’t present to defend their belief in the dire consequences of global warming. (“There’s no accounting for human folly,” Mr. Dyson said when asked about Mr. Gore’s Nobel Prize.) Saying that on a recent trip he and his wife found Greenlanders to be delighted with their warmer climate and increased tourism, Mr. Dyson suggested that representing “local warming by a global average is misleading.” In his comments at both the Nassau Club and Labyrinth, he decried the use of computer modeling to make “tremendously dogmatic” predictions about worldwide trends, without acknowledging the “messy, muddy real world” and the non-climatic effects of increased carbon dioxide. “There is no substitute for widely-conducted field operations over a long time,” he told the Nassau Club audience, citing the “enormous gaps in knowledge and sparseness of observation” that characterize the work of global warming experts.

Why can’t some people get with the program? Thankfully, though, mz will be along any minute to call Professor Dyson “stupid.”

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

A Corrective

28 Comments

…to the charlatans like Jim Hansen. Here are two useful books. First, Cool It, by Bjorn Lomborg who, while he doesn’t deny the science behind global warming, he doesn’t need to, because he has actually prioritized useful government policy actions based on cost and benefit (something that the warm-mongers refuse to do, e.g., Kyoto). Second, from Chris Horner, Red Hot Lies, which is well described by its subtitle: “How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.

Yup. As many reviewers note, “climate change” isn’t really about science–it’s just the latest ideology to come along for the collectivists to use in their latest attempt to bend us to their will.