Popehat hilariously illustrates why lawyers’ jobs are probably secure, for now.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
A New Transistor
…that doesn’t need batteries. Seems like it would have applications for the outer solar system.
I have to say, after reading decades of science fiction, that it does feel like the future is arriving. For better or worse.
[Update a while later]
3-D printed magnets.
Climate McCarthyism
Wikileaks exposed it, from Podesta and Steyer:
Since the fivethirtyeight.com uproar, Pielke has quit publishing about climate change. He’s gone on to become a world-leading expert on sports and doping. He now heads the Sports Governance Center at the University of Colorado, which is housed within the university’s athletics department. He has more than 8,000 followers on Twitter and is an active, maybe rabid, tweeter. “I’m having a blast,” he told me. Working on climate change, he said, “you wake up, it’s the same people arguing about the same stuff. In sports, you have no idea what idea you will be writing about. . . . There’s so much going on. There’s so much upheaval.” What lessons did he learn from his stint in the climate-change discussion? He replied that the debate is “almost religious in its intensity.” Instead of having a rational discussion about the best ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the debate has become solely “about power, about who gets to speak and whose voices are deemed legitimate.” The smear campaign against him by Romm and ThinkProgress was designed “to make public speech costly.”
The lawsuit against me and others is mentioned as well. What fascists these people are.
Interstates
I’ve driven large sections of almost all of these over the decades, but none of them end to end. Closest I’ve come is I-10, but I broke off to head south on the turnpike before I got to Jacksonville. Have to say I’m surprised that they’ve never bypassed Breezewood (which I remember from the turnpike as a kid driving from Michigan to New York in the sixties). I guess tunneling the mountain would be too much of a PITA and disruptive to residents.
Bob Hoover
Rest in peace. One of the all-time great pilots. A lot of friends at Rockwell got a ride in his Mustang.
Here’s a good story from AOPA.
[Afternoon update]
Here’s the story from Air & Space. I’ll be interested to hear what, if anything, General Yeager has to say.
Steven DenBeste
He was one of the greats of early blogging, and a brilliant man in many fields. I have to confess that I feel partially responsible (though I’m sure I was far from alone) in chasing him away from blogging with an ill-thought email. I think I later apologized, but if I didn’t, Steven, if you can read this, please accept my deepest apologies.
[Tuesday-morning update]
More thoughts from Jim Geraghty.
Paleolithic Art
Take a break from this absurd depressing election with a tour of a 35,000-year old French cave. Check out the slide show.
Elon’s Mars Plans
He had an AMA yesterday. I’d be more interested in this, if I gave a rat’s patoot about Mars.
I found this bit more interesting:
Musk was asked about the reusability of the Falcon 9 rockets currently flying. He stated “I think the F9 boosters could be used almost indefinitely, so long as there is scheduled maintenance and careful inspections.” He emphasized that the current Falcon 9 rockets in production would be retired soon and that their next version would be designed for easy reuse. The new Falcon 9, which he calls “Falcon 9 Block 5” – the fifth and final version in the Falcon series, is scheduled to have its first flight in six to eight months.
I assume the cores for the heavy will be of similar design. I wonder how often “careful inspections” need to occur? Every flight?
Colonizing Mars
Speaking of space in The New Atlantis, thoughts from Bob Zubrin about Elon’s plans.
Growing New Knees
…and other joint cartilage, from noses.
Faster please. Though I do have to say it sort of reminds me of the end of Sleeper.