Well, shocking to them, anyway: terrorists don’t seem to pay much attention to gun laws. Whoda thunk it?
Category Archives: Technology and Society
The Frontier
Ross Douthat wonders what happened to it:
Go back and read the science fiction of the 1940s and ’50s, and you’ll be struck by the vaulting confidence that this expansion would continue upward and outward, and that a new age of exploration was just waiting to be born.
Today that confidence has vanished. Our Mars rovers are impressive and our billionaires keep pouring money into private spaceflight, but neither project captures the public’s imagination, and the very term “Space Age” seems antique. The Kepler 62 discovery might have earned more headlines at a less horrific moment, but it would have fallen out of the news soon enough.
It’s possible that we’re less interested in space travel because we feel that it’s a luxury good at a time when we have bigger problems here on Earth. But it’s also possible that we’ve gradually turned inward, to our smartphone screens and Facebook profiles, because we know that spaceflight isn’t going to get us to another world anytime soon.
Actually, if the latter is the case, “we” are too pessimistic, because we’re paying too much attention to NASA’s dysfunction, and not enough to what’s happening in the real world of spaceflight. I do think that the billionaires are capturing peoples’ attention, and as real things start to happen, they’ll do so much more.
SF On TV
Michael Stracynski explains why most of it is awful.
Life Extension And Entitlements
This is a serious issue about which most people, including most policy makers, are in denial:
Ultimately, the question is this: are Americans entitled to unlimited life expectancy? If so, perhaps we need to say goodbye to the notion of limited government as a greater share of wealth is devoted to the health and income needs of a much longer-lived population. From where I sit, unlimited life expectancy sounds appealing. Unlimited government? Not so much. Mr. Kurzweil’s vision greatly amplifies the urgency of our getting on with the task of fundamental entitlement reforms.
The Founders said that we had a right to the pursuit of happiness, which to me would include the pursuit of an indefinite lifespan, if our pursuit is generally successful, and we’re leading happy lives. But they granted no right to live off the labor of others.
A Space Hacker Workshop
I’m busy preparing my presentation for this afternoon at Space Access, but Ed Wright is announcing a space hacker workshop up at Ames Research Center in Mountain View on May 4-5 for people who want to learn how to build cubesats that can fly suborbitally on XCOR’s Lynx.
[Update Friday morning]
I originally wrote this post in Phoenix last Saturday, but didn’t actually publish it until yesterday, in case it had anyone scratching their heads.
A Battery Breakthrough?
Let’s hope this pans out. Among other things, it would solve Boeing’s problem. In fact, it might make electric airplanes possible, let alone cars. And some obvious space applications.
Attacks Like The One In Boston
Why are they so rare?
I’ve been wondering that for years. Decades in fact, long before 911. My theory has always been that the intersection of the sets of people competent to do such things, and people willing to do such things, is very small. Fortunately. Unfortunately, with advancing technology, it’s going to get easier, expanding the former set.
Busy And Aching
I was traveling most of last week, and I’m now frantically trying to finish the book. Plus, I had a tooth extracted this morning.
Just in case anyone was wondering why blogging has been light to non-existent.
[Wednesday morning update]
Thanks for the sympathy, but it’s really not that bad. The extraction was almost painless, with lidocaine, and I’ve only experienced a little swelling, and not much pain, on ibuprofen. I feel pretty much back to normal today. Next related project is an implant, in a few months after the bone graft has filled in and healed, but my experience with those is that they’re not a big deal, either. Modern dentistry is one of the many reasons that I wouldn’t want to have been born in an earlier era.
The “Pro-Gun” Provisions Of Manchin-Toomey
My Talk At Space Access
Clark Lindsey has a report up.