Is it possible? Even if it’s very unlikely, it’s such a high payoff that it’s worth devoting some resources to. In the mean time, I’m much more focused on making it affordable to just get into orbit.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Holy Chilole
I like me some chiles, but these people are nuts:
Mr. Bosland claims to have broken the two million Scoville mark in February 2012 with his Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. That is the same strength as police-grade pepper spray — a substance no sensible person would let travel through his digestive tract. Mr. Bosland hasn’t yet submitted paperwork to Guinness for the official record, and his claim really burns up Mr. de Wit, who insists his pepper is still the hottest. Only chemical chromatography that measures several samples for their average level of capsaicin, the chemical that gives peppers their bite, can establish a record claim. But Mr. Scott, one of the few people on Earth who has tasted both varieties, says the Moruga Scorpion is clearly hotter.
I used to grow habaneros on the patio (and I still have a container of dried ones, years old, to spice up a chili), but I hadn’t realized that they were now growing peppers in the mega-Scoville range.
EBooks
…are very different from print books.
[Update a while later]
Sorry, I’ve solved the mystery of the missing link.
Obesity, Diet And Calories
Another blow to the mindless thermodynamic theory, and hope for a breakthrough:
Slimming bacteria work their magic in either of two ways, studies of gut microbiota show. They seem to raise metabolism, allowing people to burn off a 630-calorie chocolate chip muffin more easily.
They also extract fewer calories from the muffin in the first place. In contrast, fattening bacteria wrest every last calorie from food.
Transferring slimming bacteria into obese people might be one way to give them the benefits of weight-loss surgery without an operation. It might also be possible to devise a menu that encourages the proliferation of slimming bacteria and reduces the population of fattening bacteria.
I’ve always been thin, regardless of what I ate (though as I got older, I did put on a few pounds, which came back off when I went paleo), and have never felt particularly virtuous about it. I don’t have much patience for thin people who lecture fat ones about their caloric intake. People do have different metabolisms, and what you eat can affect it, but the “diet and exercise” nazis don’t want to believe it.
Cancer Treatment
One drug to rule them all?
Faster, please.
Highly Creative Living
Eighteen principles, from Justine Musk (yes, Elon’s ex).
[Update, late evening]
I would belatedly point out that Justine Musk is a more-than-admirable person in her own right, independently of her prior relationships, and my apologies for any implication otherwise.
Paul F. Dietz
Has anyone heard from him recently (i.e., in the last couple years)?
[Evening update]
OK, look, folks. I’m not stupid. I’ve done searches. I’m asking people who actually know him, and might know what’s up.
High-Speed Rail
Wow, even CNN has figured out what a massive money-suck boondoggle it is. But the morons in Sacramento remain clueless.
The Books
Where are they? We’ve got (perhaps literally) a ton of them, which are a pain to move, but we haven’t been acquiring many lately.
The Worst Law In Technology
The administration could fix it, or at least ameliorate it, but it would take some leadership from the president and attorney general, something that’s been in short supply.