Some morons in Texas arrested a fourteen-year-old kid for building a digital clock.
As far as I’m concerned, though, CAIR isn’t doing him any favors by getting involved.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Defying Darwin
A Colorado park stays closed because too many people are taking selfies with bears.
I think we should just let evolution take its course, myself.
Transhumanists
The Beeb checks them out.
Kind of funny that the reporter thinks that Aubrey de Grey is a woman.
[Update a few minutes later]
@Rand_Simberg oh wow, thanks for flagging. As you'll see from my film, I do know that! Not sure how that happened. Will change now.
— Benjamin Zand (@BenjaminZand) September 15, 2015
Probably an editorial error.
Paul Ehrlich
The man who has never been right about anything doesn’t like Mark Steyn’s new book.
[Via Ed Driscoll]
The Next President And Space
Another piece at The Space Review I missed last week was Jeff Foust’s assessment of the presidential field in the context of space policy.
Bottom line: None of them are going to be a JFK. Which isn’t surprising, because even JFK wasn’t the JFK of space-advocate fantasies. We live in a democratic Republic, and we’re not going to do Apollo again, to Mars or anywhere else. The best we can hope for is a president who recognizes the value of high-leverage space technology needed to reduce costs, and will fund those things necessary to support it during his or her term.
The Martian And Real Mars Missions
I’m a little behind on my reading of The Space Review, but last week, Eric Sterner cautioned (as Keith Cowing has been doing repeatedly) space enthusiasts not to imagine that the movie will somehow sell NASA programs or budgets. Note the discussion about lack of redundancy in comments. Weir’s scenario assumes that NASA is going to do Apollo to Mars. The purpose of my Kickstarter project is to show why that shouldn’t and probably won’t ever happen. And there’s also this:
Do people who support NASA's fake #JourneyToMars realize how few astronaut opportunities it entails? https://t.co/n4mugagjsr
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 14, 2015
Hillary’s Email Gap
Nixon had eighteen minutes. Hillary has five months.
But I’m sure she discussed nothing in those five months except wedding planning and yoga classes.
[Update late morning]
Now-classified emails are sitting on Google and AOL servers.
It’s almost as though the federal government is massively incompetent.
Uploading Your Mind
An interesting article on both the physical and philosophical difficulties involved.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Related, and sad: A young neuroscientist’s bet on cryonics.
The Not-Wiped Server
“There is no indication of” does not mean that “it didn’t happen.” We just don’t know, though I suspect the FBI is finding out. But the epistomelogical problems with the reporting on this have been intense.
The Martian
Here’s the first review of the full movie I’ve seen, over at Mashable.
I’m not a big Damon fan, because his politics annoy me, but it sounds like he did a good job.