Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

More On Toxic Greenery

6 Comments

Really, someone should use this data to get rid of the idiotic bans on plastic bags.

Warning of disease may seem like an over-the-top scare tactic, but research suggests there’s more than anecdote behind this industry talking point. In a 2011 study, four researchers examined reusable bags in California and Arizona and found that 51 percent of them contained coliform bacteria. The problem appears to be the habits of the reusers. Seventy-five percent said they keep meat and vegetables in the same bag. When bags were stored in hot car trunks for two hours, the bacteria grew tenfold.

That study also found, happily, that washing the bags eliminated 99.9 percent of the bacteria. It undercut even that good news, though, by finding that 97 percent of people reported that they never wash their bags.

They’ll take my plastic bags away from my cold, dead fingers.

[Update late morning]

The San Francisco bag ban kills five people a year.

If we could save just one child’s life…

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Silent Running

28 Comments

The stupid movie is appropriately dissed by Lileks:

The entire movie is nonsense, a green paen to the inevitable dystopia and the spiritual purity of those who shove seeds in loam. I remember thinking it was incredibly Deep at the time, because it summed up everything we expected from our future: a planet without trees, choked by pollution, ruled by brand names (AMF was stamped on the futuristic pool table, if I recall) but still cool because it had spaceships. This fleet held the last few trees and plants, which had been parked in orbit around Saturn – makes sense – and when the order came to destroy the last trees and return the ships to commercial use, because well you know tin soldiers and Nixon coming. Bruce Dern kills the guys he works with because they don’t have sufficient social consciousness, and saves the trees while Joan Baez sings in the background.

A YouTube comment:

I often cry when I hear this. I used to cry because of how beautiful it was and my fears of what might be. Now I cry because I see, despite it’s warning, what has become.

How true. The planet has no more trees, but we have fleets of manned spacecraft capable of reaching Saturn.

It is amazing that people take such nonsense seriously.

Anyway, read the whole thing for some evocative high-school nostalgia.

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Asteroid Missions

22 Comments

Are they really harder than landing on Mars?

Sorry, but with all respect, that’s nuts. We know all we need to know about asteroids to plan a mission to them, including the space radiation environment. All you need to do is pick one. And landing on Mars is hard.

That’s not to say that I think that NASA should be doing an asteroid mission, of course. And especially it shouldn’t as long as it continues to spread the nonsense that it needs the SLS/Orion for it.

[Update a while later]

I think that this is mostly FUD from people who don’t want to do an asteroid mission.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Left Still Loves Guns

2 Comments

But they only want guns capable of killing large numbers of people quickly in the hands of the state:

Leftists are by nature not liberals, no matter what label they have adopted. Scratch a liberal, and find a Fascist.

Except the latter “liberal” needs appropriate scare quotes. Funny thing, I don’t know of any corporation or individual who murdered people by the millions in the last century.

Meanwhile, newsflash for Piers Morgan: the AR-15 is today’s musket.

[Update a while later]

Extraordinary delusions and the madness of crowds:

Lefties are fond of lecturing (and writing books, and plays, and movies) about the famously dark days of McCarthyism, where right wing Bircher paranoiacs supposedly were looking for a ‘Red under every bed.’ I suppose to a certain extent they had a point, but the sum total impact of that brief 50’s reign of terror seems to be that a couple of Hollywood writers lost screenplay deals.

Contrast that with our new age of left wing paranoia. Now that the national boogie men are Gunnies rather than Commies, there ain’t no bed, or closet, or playground safe to hide from our brave safety crusaders. No one is above suspicion, and so holy is their cause that even crayon-scrawled representations of Demon Gun must be banned. Obviously, we have to arrest children precisely because it’s For The Children. Welcome to New Salem, with the Reverend Piers Morgan as our new Cotton Mather.

It’s no coincidence that the heart of Leftism is in Massachusetts. They’re the direct descendants of the Puritans, who came seeking religious freedom for themselves, including the freedom to restrict others’ freedom.

[Bumped]

General, Technology and Society

A Great Deal At Amazon

1 Comment

Get this Bosch router table, today only at this price. I bought a table from Rockler a couple months ago to build some new doors for our kitchen cabinets, but I did get a Bosch combo router that’s been great (I’ve been using the plunge base to mortise the holes for the hidden-hinge cups), and if I’d seen a deal like this on a Bosch table, I’d have gotten it instead. I don’t know how I’ve lived without them.

[Update a while later]

Here’s an unhelpful review.