Category Archives: Technology and Society

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Space Science, Technology and Society

Missing The Point At The Economist

3 Comments

I just want to pull my hair, of which I have little to spare, when I read editorials like this:

Luckily, technology means that man can explore both the moon and Mars more fully without going there himself. Robots are better and cheaper than they have ever been. They can work tirelessly for years, beaming back data and images, and returning samples to Earth. They can also be made sterile, which germ-infested humans, who risk spreading disease around the solar system, cannot.

Here we go again. Humans versus robots, it’s all about science and exploration. It is not all about science and/or exploration. The space program is about much more than that, but the popular mythology continues.

Humanity, some will argue, is driven by a yearning to boldly go to places far beyond its crowded corner of the universe. If so, private efforts will surely carry people into space (though whether they should be allowed to, given the risk of contaminating distant ecosystems, is worth considering). In the meantime, Mr Obama’s promise in his inauguration speech to “restore science to its rightful place” sounds like good news for the sort of curiosity-driven research that will allow us to find out whether those plumes of gas are signs of life.

Hey, anyone who reads this site know that I’m all for private efforts carrying people into space. They also know that I don’t think that anyone has a right to not “allow them to do so,” and that I place a higher value on humanity and expanding earthly life into the universe than on unknown “distant ecosystems.” What have “distant ecosystems” ever done for the solar system?

I also question the notion that Obama’s gratuitous digs at the Bush science policy had anything whatsoever to do with space policy. And of course, to imagine that they did, is part of the confused policy trap of thinking that space is synonymous with science.

Technology and Society, Weird

The Bees

33 Comments

Sometime over the past few months or years, our house in California had become a haven for honeybees. They found a tiny hole in the flashing of the roof, and set up shop inside a wall, just below the ceiling of the living room. They managed to find a small crack inside, so once a day or so one would find its way into the house, which was obviously a problem for the tenants.

I got one ridiculous quote of nineteen hundred bucks (this included opening the wall, removing the bees, and restuccoing) to remove them, but I got separate quotes for bee removal and stucco replacement, which got the cost down to six hundred or so total. Anyway, the bees were removed today, and through the magic of the Internet and my tenant’s videocamera, you can watch.

[Update a few minutes later]

Sorry, the video’s been taken down, at least temporarily. I think he wanted to reedit it. I’ll update if it gets uploaded again.

[Update about 8 PM Eastern]

OK, it’s back up and I’ve updated the links.

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Bad News At The FDA

1 Comment

Via Virginia Postrel — Sidney Wolfe has been put on the committee overseeing drug safety. This is a calamity. Many unseen murders, and needless suffering, will ensue. As she notes:

He’s got the “consumer” slot. Well, I’m a big-time pharmaceutical consumer, and this man does not speak for me.

Fortunately, I’m not (yet) much of a pharmaceutical consumer, but he doesn’t speak for me, either.

Administrative, Media Criticism, Technology and Society

Comment Spam Question

8 Comments

I’ve noticed a new type of comment spam showing up. It’s a link to a post, that’s aggregated with other links to other posts, which may or may not be related, in a blog that consists of nothing else but links.

Here’s an example. This seems to be a blog that is set up for free as part of a larger blog site (in this case, “localferret.com”), with no restrictions. So, two questions. What is the purpose of such a blog? And is there any harm in allowing it to provide links to my site (probably picked up by a bot that simply watches my feed — I get a lot of Russian spam this way), even though they seem pointless? It does, after all, increase my Google and Technorati (and probably other) rankings. All of them are captured for moderation, but I can’t decide whether to approve them or declare them spam.

Any ideas?

Technology and Society

Smarter Spambots

5 Comments

This is great news (he wrote sarcastically):

New zombies now routinely request new IP addresses from their ISPs, so anti-spam software that works by blocking spam based the originating IP addresses can no longer effectively halt them, the company said in its most recent quarterly Internet Threats Trend Report.

While some ISPs deny their request to change IP address, others accede, giving them new IP addresses in real time, Amir Lev, chief technology officer at Commtouch (NASDAQ: CTCH), told InternetNews.com. The result is that zombies can change addresses much faster than most security services and software can respond, which means their users are not protected, Lev said.

Why do ISPs allow such a thing? Is there a legitimate reason that couldn’t be handled by a personal phone call? If not, there should be pressure on them to stop this.

I mean, come on. A hundred and fifty billion spam emails a day? Just think how much cheaper bandwidth might be if the majority of it wasn’t spam.