Everything is going perfectly so far, and they may return on August 2nd.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Black Voters In Detroit
…are fed up with the Democrats, and certain that Trump will win.
Meanwhile, Scott Adams is pessimistic, because of social media.
The Segway
It’s the end of the road for it. Well, sidewalk.
I remember thinking, after all the pre-announcement hype, “That’s it?” It has its uses, but as transport it’s not very practical. No protection from weather, and no cargo capacity.
AB5
California doubles down in its war on employment.
A New Cannonball Record
Less than 26 hours from New York to Redondo Beach, and he did it solo. That would be averaging over a hundred miles an hour, I think.
That’s the sort of thing I might have tried when I was younger and stupider. I did do a 24-hour drive thirty years ago, but not cross country. I started out in Reno, drove up into northern California, decided to go up and see Crater Lake in Oregon (which I’d never done), then came back down I-5. By the time I got to the Bay area, I decided there was no need to stop for hotel, since it was only another five hours to LA.
[Monday-morning update]
Seeing lots of stories in comments, so here’s one more, my funnest non-stop. I was about to graduate, and driving out to California in late August to do some job hunting. On US 40 in Colorado, somewhere near Steamboat, I saw a young woman hitchhiking. I of course picked her up, to prevent someone less…scrupulous than me from doing so (of course, I didn’t consider the possibility that she was herself a serial killer). It turned out that she was headed to San Francisco to see her boyfriend who was sick in the hospital.
I had been planning to stop in Salt Lake for the night, but she was in a hurry to get there, and knew how to drive a stick, so she drove through the night across Utah and Nevada while I slept. At daybreak we were in Hawthorne (Nevada, not California), and headed from there over Tioga Pass into Yosemite. We stopped by an alpine lake in the high country and had a picnic lunch, then headed down into Yosemite Valley, then down through Gold Country, across the San Joaquin and into the city. When we got there, she found a pay phone, and it turned out he was out of the hospital. I dropped her off in a parking lot where he was waiting for her, bid her farewell, and headed down to Mountain View, where there was a thriving spacer community based at Ames.
Movie Theaters
What we’ll lose if we lose them.
We hardly ever went before the virus, though.
New SF
I haven’t read it, but Mike Combs has a new short story out.
Persecution Is Cool
Bob Zimmerman, on the cancel culture within the space and science community.
Keith has blocked me on Twitter, and I suspect I’m on a lot of blocklists. I follow a lot of space people, like Carolyn, but only engage them on space and science topics. I don’t argue non-space politics with space people, because many of them are leftist loons, which is why I maintain separate accounts for space stuff and the book.
[Update Wednesday morning]
Technology
Which one has accidentally killed the most people?
I agree with the historian who says that the question is ill framed.
Drone Hitchhikers
This is an interesting idea. Having the ability to charge while on the buses would enhance the idea.
It reminds me of some of the concepts for planetary exploration with a “mothership” and flocks of cubesat “birds” (e.g., to send a bunch, or consecutive waves, through the plumes of Enceladus to capture data in both time and position).