…is making us less safe.
And making the government too powerful. Lord Acton had it right.
[Sunday morning update]
Link is fixed now. Sorry!
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Engineering Less-Than 101
This is dramatically oversimplified. It only works for mechanical engineering.
Blackberry
How the mighty have fallen. It’s game over.
I never used one myself.
Bill Gates’s Nuclear Ambitions
I’m not a huge Bill Gates fan, but he certainly gets this important issue. Cheap energy is the key to reducing poverty. As long as government policies aren’t insane, of course. And we need it for space as well. The lack of progress in space nuclear reactors for the past half century is appalling.
The Overview Effect
This is only a surprise to people who haven’t read Frank White’s book
But I’m always amused by people who think that there will be no demand, or insufficient demand, for space experiences.
Our (Near) Future Lifespan
I think it’s a mistake to call the fourth one “immortality.” A better phrase is “indefinite lifespan.” Unless our understanding of the universe is wrong, we’ll all die eventually, when it gets cold. And medical breakthroughs won’t save us from having an ACME anvil dropped on us.
Absent backups, that is. Which is philosophically unsatisfying, from the standpoint of identity.
But we need to start thinking about policy in terms of scenarios three and four, and ObamaCare is a disaster on that front (as is social security, lifetime tenure for academics and judges and popes, etc.). Plus, if people are going to continue to be born, and not die, we will eventually need other places to live than this planet.
Joss Whedon
The definitive interview.
Meet The New Generation Of Robots
They’re almost human.
I think it’s going to be more important that they act human than that they look it, until they figure out a way to bridge the uncanny valley.
ObamaCare’s Weakest Link
It’s the IT, stupid.
As noted over there, this whole mess started with Roosevelt’s wage controls during the war. But did they fix that? No, they triple down on the socialist stupidity.
To Ask, Or Not To Ask?
Some people have noted to me that I’m not as vociferous in conference sessions as I used to be. This is sort of the template I use now.
It would have served me well in my younger, more impetuous days.