Category Archives: Technology and Society

The Permian Basin

An analyst says that it’s a virtually infinite source of oil.

And it’s bad news for bad people around the world.

[Update a few minutes later]

Mexico’s largest shale field is now open for business. In theory, this should help the economy down there as well, and perhaps relieve the pressure to emigrate. But the place is still pretty corrupt.

Totality

Here’s the difference between 99% and 100%.

[Friday-morning update]

“I’ve always thought eclipse chasers—these people who spend thousands of dollars flying around the world to spend two minutes looking at a solar eclipse—were a little nutty. I mean, that’s a little extreme, right? If you want to see what a solar eclipse looks like, type solar eclipse into Google.”

I was wrong.”

The Dozenth Flight

I’m not going up to Vandenberg for the Formosat launch, but I’ll probably go to the beach (I’m assuming the marine layer will clear by then). I’d like to see SpaceX get to twenty flights this year, but I’d like even more to see them finally launch the heavy.

[Update a while later]

This is interesting, if true: Space will lose millions on this mission. Of course, it would have probably cost them a lot more to continue with the Falcon 1e. This is also the first time I’ve ever seen the marginal launch costs stated, at $37M. Also interesting, if correct.

Accuweather

Don’t use their app.

Still installing stuff on my new phone, but very carefully. I just started installing a voice recorder, but it insisted on having access to my pictures, the Internet, my location. Why? Nope.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems sort of related: A statistics professor was banned from Google. It is looking more and more like the old libertarian argument that we have less to concern with private companies than government is getting a little threadbare when it comes to concentrations of power like this.