I think worshiping local foods is stupid; our ancestors were all locovores, of necessity (unless you call hauling a mammoth carcass miles an import). Their diet generally sucked.
But I’m amused to see how rife with fraud the movement is.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
More Junk Nutrition Science
How many lives would have been saved over the past four decades if this study had been interpreted properly?
The Future Of Space Construction
Is the ISS the last aluminum spacecraft?
Maybe for spacecraft launched from earth, but I think it partly depends on sources of materials. There’s a lot of aluminum on the moon, and not much carbon.
The Space Renaissance Act
Bridenstine has introduced his bill. It has its own domain. Haven’t read yet, but will have thoughts when I have.
Space Exploration’s Impact On Society
The NASA History Office has issued a new book, that is quite long, but has some interesting-looking essays in it.
Nuclear Power
Why it’s time to dispel the myths about it.
Long past time, I’d say. The Guardian has had surprisingly good science and technology coverage lately.
The CEI Subpoena
I flew to Denver yesterday from Phoenix after the conference, and drove down to Colorado Springs for the National Space Symposium, which has a crazy schedule of events, so blogging will be light. I haven’t talked about the insanity of what the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands (and others AGs) are attempting to do, but Megan McArdle has some thoughts:
I support action on climate change for the same reason I buy homeowner’s, life and disability insurance: because the potential for catastrophe is large. But that doesn’t mean I’m entitled to drive people who disagree with me from the public square. Climate activists have an unfortunate tendency to try to do just that, trying to brand dissenters as the equivalent of Holocaust deniers.
It’s an understandable impulse. It seems easier to shut down dissenters than to persuade people to stop consuming lots and lots of energy-intensive goods and services.
But history has had lots and lots of existentially important debates. If you thought that only the One True Church could save everyone from Hell, the Reformation was the most existentially important debate in human history. If you thought that Communist fifth columnists were plotting to turn the U.S. into Soviet Russia, that was also pretty existentially important. We eventually realized that it was much better to have arguments like these with words, rather than try to suppress one side of them by force of law.
Unfortunately those who wield the law forget that lesson, and we get cases like the CEI subpoena, intended to silence debate by hounding one side. The attorney general doesn’t even need to have the law on his side; the process itself can be the punishment, as victims are forced to spend immense amounts on legal fees, and immense time and money on complying with investigations. (And if the law were on the attorney general’s side in a case like this, then that’s a terrible law, and it should be overturned.)
“The process itself can be the punishment.” Gee, where have we heard that before?
[Update mid-afternoon]
Not to mention, Attorneys General, that conspiring against free speech is a crime.
Laws are for the little people.
Elon’s Good Week
First he sells several billion dollars worth of cars, then he lands a rocket on a ship, live on television, while throwing a private expandable hab into orbit.
From SpaceX’s standpoint, they now have another used rocket that they will almost certainly refly, for testing if not another operational mission.
If I could retweet this x100 I would. Space Access! https://t.co/oWuMBkj8tO
— The High Frontier (@thehighfrontier) April 8, 2016
[Update a while later]
I tweeted prior to flight that they were probably expecting a successful landing, given that (unlike last time) they weren’t downplaying chances of success. Nice to see Elon confirm that.
[Update a few minutes later]
Whole Milk
It may reduce risk of Type II diabetes.
Reduced-fat milk is an abomination that no one should be drinking, least of all growing kids. The low-fat fad has probably created most of the Type II diabetes over the past few decades.
On The Road To Phoenix
Hope I’ll see some of you at Space Access.