For good or ill, this technology is a game changer.
I think one application should be putting it in footballs for better spots and touchdown calls, and shoes to determine if someone stepped out of bounds.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
The UK Elections
In addition to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the big losers were the pollsters. I wonder if this will presage our own elections next year?
Have to confess; my favorite part of the UK elections was (finally!) the departure of that vile lunatic George Galloway from Parliament.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 8, 2015
[Update a few minutes later]
Seeing reports that the vast majority of British Jews voted Tory, only about 20% for Milliband. I’m totally unshocked. Nice to see the Brits starting to come to their senses. Maggie Thatcher’s Britain still stands.
You Can’t Take The Sky From Me
As I promised yesterday, my thoughts on social justice in space are up at PJMedia.
[Update a few minutes later]
[Mid-morning update]
Mars needs Kirk, not Hofstadter.
But it’s Martin Robbins, not “Roberts.”
Carley’s Domain Name
[Update a few minutes later]
Whatever you think of her as CEO, I like having her in the race: Hillary, “Why Did You Lie As You Stood Over Bodies of Four Murdered Americans?”
[Thursday-morning update]
She’s doing it right so far.
[Bumped]
Learning To Code
It’s never too late. Silicon Valley is going to have to get over its ageism.
Burke Versus Spock
Some thoughts on transhumanism and rationality.
The First Woman To Be Raped In Space
As Glenn notes, this seems to be gender feminism’s major contribution to spaceflight.
I ruffled some feathers this weekend at Space Access by having the temerity to point out that there will be some people who will oppose our expansion into space, because they don’t trust us to do it “right,” and with “social justice.” So much will they oppose it that they may even get violent about it. They do, after all, call themselves “warriors,” and they use a lot of eliminationist rhetoric, like “Smash patriarchy.” I got an email or two about it.
My quick take: Saying that I am “picking a fight” with these people is like saying that the New York Times was picking a fight with the Japanese by reporting that they had bombed Pearl Harbor. As I noted in my talk, they went after the gamers, and the SF community. They’re already on their way to go after the space settlers, as the above linked piece indicates.
I’ll have a longer take at Ricochet or PJMedia.
[Update a few minutes later]
Sort of related: Why Joss Whedon left Twitter.
[Update a while later]
Here’s one hot off the press (Monday) from D. N. Lee (the Scientific American blogger whose tweet I highlighted in my talk). This is much more mild than the tweet, but it gives you an idea of what we’re up against.
Regenerative Life Support
Listening to an interesting presentation on challenges of closing the cycle on ISS, particularly water. Not seeing any real surprises, but I think that this will be a very useful result of having the station for improving systems. They’re learning about life of various system elements, and getting some surprises, with some failure years before expected, and some lasting much longer.
3-D Printing In Space Using ISRU
That’s the topic of the talk coming up from Dennis Wingo at the Improving Space Operations Workshop. I follow him.
Pad Abort Test
Congratulations to SpaceX. From what I’m seeing on my Twitter feed, it went off without a hitch.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s the video.
[Update a while later]
Here‘s Michael Belfiore’s report.