Can they teach us to be better humans? I’m skeptical, but it’s an interesting development.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
North Korea
Some are poo pooing the latest test, but they seem to be continuing to advance their technology. Here‘s a useful backgrounder, via Austin Bay. More here.
The End Of OPEC
…is near.
Good. It’s long overdue. Couldn’t happen to a better group of thugs.
EPA
John Stossell says “Enough Protection Already.”
The amount of mendacity from the Left about Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” is more staggering than usual. It’s almost as bad as the health-care lies.
Graphene
Is there anything it can’t do? OK, probably, but this is pretty cool:
“Realization of scalable membranes with uniform pore size down to atomic scale is a significant step forward and will open new possibilities for improving the efficiency of desalination technology,” Rahul Nair, professor of material physics at the University of Manchester, said in a statement.
Previously researchers were unable to remove common salts using the graphene filtering technique, instead removing small nanoparticles and organic molecules.
“This is the first clear-cut experiment in this regime. We also demonstrate that there are realistic possibilities to scale up the described approach and mass produce graphene-based membranes with required sleeve sizes,” Nair added.
It will probably have useful purefying properties in general, but this would be useful for California as well as the Third World.
Capitalism In Space
Deuterized Drugs
The first one has arrived. The big advantage of this, according to a Twitter discussion with Derek, is that dosage times are much less critical.
Russia?
No, “the pony in the manure is the corruption of our intelligence officials.”
It’s both appalling and amusing to watch the Democrat operatives with bylines in the media attempt to “cover” this story (as in, in the immortal words of Iowahawk, hold a pillow over it until it stops moving).
[Update a couple minutes later]
It’s worth reading the Victor Davis Hanson piece that Clarice cites. Sure, after all the lies about Benghazi and the deserter, I totally believe Susan Rice now. As noted, if Obama was Nixon, she’d be one of his “plumbers.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Rice, Obama’s hatchet woman, proves Lord Acton right again.
[Update a while later]
Why is CNN trying to refute a story it refuses to cover?
[Update another while later]
Susan Rice’s unmasking: A Watergate-style scandal:
Understand: There would have been no intelligence need for Susan Rice to ask for identities to be unmasked. If there had been a real need to reveal the identities — an intelligence need based on American interests — the unmasking would have been done by the investigating agencies.
The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president’s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it.
If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic-party interests.
Oopsie. What did the president know, and when did he know it? Will Susan Rice wear orange to protect him?
[Update late morning]
More links and thoughts from Glenn Reynolds.
[Update early afternoon]
Susan Rice has no defense. Only one I can think of is “I was ordered by the president,” but that one doesn’t pass the Nuremberg test.
[Update a while later]
A Watergate-level scandal? Looks like it to me, particularly if they can find a link to Obama. Of course, the IRS scandal should have been as well. Obama did what Nixon could only dream of doing.
Milspace
An interview with Mike Rogers. At the Space Symposium today he announced that he’s going to introduce legislation to create a Space Corps, attached to the Air Force, presumably per Coyote’s recommendation. This was amusing, though:
Is the development of a replacement for the Atlas 5 rocket’s RD-180 moving quickly enough? Is it moving in a direction you’re satisfied with?
Well, it’s not quick enough. I’m very happy that we’re staying after it. My subcommittee, our full committee, this Congress, is committed to not stop until we have an American-made engine that can get our national security space assets launched. And we’re not going to stop. I’m encouraged. I think we’re pretty close to getting a new engine that’s going to be viable.
Pretty sure he wants to engine that will be built in Alabama, even though no rocket manufacturer wants it.
“Now To Make It Pay Off”
Jeff Foust’s take on the SpaceX success, over at The Space Review. I’d like to be surprised that people are surprised, but I’m not. Elon could have regular service operating between earth and Mars, with thousands living there, while NASA is still planning the first flight of SLS, and some people would complain that he’s not building starships.