Category Archives: Technology and Society

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

First-Amendment Rights

January 25, 2017 Rand Simberg 2 Comments

..of public employees: A quick cheat sheet.

What I found amusing about the tweets from Badlands National Park yesterday (which were cheered by the supposed fans of “science”) were how either they weren’t “scientific facts” (no, it is an opinion, not a fact, that last year was the “hottest on record”) or trivial and irrelevant chemistry (“A gallon of gasoline puts X pounds of carbon into the atmosphere when burned). But I was also amused at the concern that the employees who had done so had probably been fired.

One of the many reasons federal employee unions are terrible. It's almost impossible to discipline people. https://t.co/quxjqIG9t6

— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 24, 2017

@michelelfrost A high-level friend of mine tells stories about how he couldn't get rid of bad secretaries, except to promote them.

— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 24, 2017

Badlands National Park, fully sentient now, lumbers towards Washington, DC to exact its revenge. pic.twitter.com/ZLoL6ajq6t

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) January 24, 2017

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s the story for those who don’t know what I’m talking about.

Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Russia’s ICBM Program

January 25, 2017 Rand Simberg 2 Comments

…isn’t going so well.

I wonder if this, combined with recent problems with their space systems, are an indication of a much deeper systemic rot?

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

High-Speed Rail

January 24, 2017 Rand Simberg 41 Comments

Unlike the California plan, this might make sense. No serious mountains between Dallas and Houston.

Business, Economics, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Scott Pruitt And The Environment

January 24, 2017 Rand Simberg 2 Comments

Yes, this is an argument about what constitutes “pollution” and how best to deal with it, not whether or not we are indifferent to it. But of course, if the Left had no strawman arguments, they’d have no arguments at all.

History, Political Commentary, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

The Space Shuttle

January 24, 2017 Rand Simberg 1 Comment

Amy Shira Teitel explains why she’s not a fan:

History, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

“I Heard Them Scream ‘Get Me Out Of Here.'”

January 24, 2017 Rand Simberg 4 Comments

“…then there was silence from the pad.”

Eric Berger writes about Apollo 1, on the fiftieth anniversary. I remember it, the day before my birthday. It was a huge wake-up call for the Apollo program, which ultimately resulted in beating the Soviets in the space race less than two years later, with Apollo 8.

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society

Site Problems

January 23, 2017 Rand Simberg 1 Comment

We had a corrupt data base that was confusing MySQL, but things should be fixed now.

Business, Health, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Anti-Biotic Resistance

January 23, 2017 Rand Simberg 9 Comments

Reversing it with a single molecule.

Faster, please. I don’t want to go back to the early 20th century.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Space, Technology and Society

SpaceX’s Next Launch

January 23, 2017 Rand Simberg 6 Comments

…won’t have sufficient performance margin to bring the first stage back. Though I’m not sure what she means by “Heavy satellites need a lot of extra speed at liftoff.”

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Greg Autry

January 22, 2017 Rand Simberg 6 Comments

…is one of the first political appointees to NASA. That’s good news, I think. He knows what a programmatic disaster SLS is.

[Monday-morning update]

Thoughts from Bob Zimmerman, who agrees that it’s potentially bad news for SLS/Orion (i.e., good news for people who want to actually accomplish things in space with NASA funding).

As he notes, it’s probably also bad news for Gavin Schmidt and GISS.

Transterrestrial Musings