One of the things that I’m working on is a series of case studies for failure of complex technological systems, particularly where a failure cascades (perhaps inevitably) into others. Columbia is a good example, in which the fragile leading-edge TPS was damaged during launch, which resulted in initial burnthrough during entry, which caused more internal damage, which resulted in a bigger hole in the wing, which resulted in increasing asymmetric forces on the vehicle, which resulted in eventual inability to keep the nose pointed forward, which resulted in the destructive breakup of the vehicle from aerodynamic forces.

Is anyone aware of similar cases (preferably non-space, e.g., the Bonefish fire)?

RIP, Scotty.

Of course, given that he had Alzheimers, he may have been dead by any useful definition for some time, just as Ronald Reagan was, even if the empty shell of the body continued to metabolize. In many ways, I fear this disease more than cancer, because it robs you and your loved ones of what is essentially you, while leaving them with an ongoing burden that can only be relieved by the final, physical death, which cannot come too soon once the mind is gone.

This, to me, is a powerful case for euthanasia. We may (and I suspect, will) come up with a cure for Alzheimers in the sense of preventing the damage, but once the damage is done, there’s no repairing it–it’s information death, which is actually much more final than metabolic death.

[Update on Wednesday evening]

How appropriate. They’re beaming him up. So to speak.

RIP, Scotty.

Of course, given that he had Alzheimers, he may have been dead by any useful definition for some time, just as Ronald Reagan was, even if the empty shell of the body continued to metabolize. In many ways, I fear this disease more than cancer, because it robs you and your loved ones of what is essentially you, while leaving them with an ongoing burden that can only be relieved by the final, physical death, which cannot come too soon once the mind is gone.

This, to me, is a powerful case for euthanasia. We may (and I suspect, will) come up with a cure for Alzheimers in the sense of preventing the damage, but once the damage is done, there’s no repairing it–it’s information death, which is actually much more final than metabolic death.

[Update on Wednesday evening]

How appropriate. They’re beaming him up. So to speak.

RIP, Scotty.

Of course, given that he had Alzheimers, he may have been dead by any useful definition for some time, just as Ronald Reagan was, even if the empty shell of the body continued to metabolize. In many ways, I fear this disease more than cancer, because it robs you and your loved ones of what is essentially you, while leaving them with an ongoing burden that can only be relieved by the final, physical death, which cannot come too soon once the mind is gone.

This, to me, is a powerful case for euthanasia. We may (and I suspect, will) come up with a cure for Alzheimers in the sense of preventing the damage, but once the damage is done, there’s no repairing it–it’s information death, which is actually much more final than metabolic death.

[Update on Wednesday evening]

How appropriate. They’re beaming him up. So to speak.

I didn’t note it, but Saturday was the sixtieth anniversary of the first atomic explosion, at Trinity Site in New Mexico. It was also the thirty-sixth anniversary of the launch of Apollo XI.

So I’m paying my Chase bill on line, and I log in with Firefox, as usual. It takes me to my account page, but any attempted link from that page (e.g., to actually pay the bill) yields a timeout error indicating that the page has gone too long without activity. Which is nonsense, because I only just logged in. After wasting a long time getting through to someone in tech support on the phone, she asks me who my ISP is.

Me: What difference does it make who my ISP is?

Her: We need to know to diagnose this.

Me: [scratching head] Ummm…OK. It’s Bell South.

Her: So what browser do they use?

Me: ?? What browser do they use? They don’t use a browser. They’re an ISP. I use a browser.

Her: When you log in to Bell South, what browser do they make you use?

Me: Log in to Bell South? With a browser? Why would I do that?

Her: How do you log in?

Me: I don’t log in. I have a permanent connection. It’s called DSL. It’s called broadband. You should try it, I hear it’s all the rage.

Her: Well, do you use a browser?

Me: [long silence, as steam slowly starts to waft out of my ears] Why yes, yes, I do use a browser, funny you should ask. Someone told me once it’s how one accesses stuff on the World Wide Web. I find it handy, occasionally.

Her: What browser do you use?

Me: I usually use Mozilla. Why didn’t you ask me that in the first place, instead of giving me the third degree about my ISP and how I log into it, which is a subject as far removed from the problem, as far as I can see, as the price of beef jerky in Tibet?

Her: I’ve never heard of that browser. Do you have Internet Explorer?

Me: Yes, I do. I tend to avoid using it, unless someone is sufficiently user hostile as to create a web site that doesn’t use standard HTML. Should I try that?

Her: Yes, go ahead, I’ll wait.

Of course, it works fine with IE. I issue a complaint.

Me: I’ve been paying bills for years with a Mozilla browser. You seem to have broken your site, since I can no longer do so.

Her: Oh, we don’t support any browsers other than IE and Netscape.

At this point, I’ve wasted enough time on this, thank her, and hang up.

Via your electrical outlet. If this happens, it will put a lot of pressure on the cable and DSL providers to drop their prices.

Thomas James has some thoughts about artificial meat.

One at the usual place and the other at…The Onion.

It’s getting to be the time of year in south Florida to hope that this will work.

Just one of several items in the latest Technology Quarterly from The Economist.