Here’s a very interesting thought for McCain to partially neutralize Obama’s appeal: Michael Steele. I heard him speak a year ago at the Conservative Summit in DC. He’s a very impressive guy. It’s a shame he didn’t win that Senate race in ’06. He came pretty close, for a Republican in Maryland.
The Mystery Remains
Apparently CalOSHA has issued their report, and it remains unclear what caused the explosion at Scaled last summer. Charles Lurio notes (as I’ve been saying for, well, forever, or at least since I heard about the proposal to go with a nitrous hybrid):
…largely because of its ability to self-detonate – nitrous oxide has every now and then created unhappy surprises whose causes are difficult or impossible to explain. This may turn out to have been the case at Mojave. If in the end no cause for that incident is identifiable, Scaled should perhaps consider an alternative oxidizer for its hybrid; liquid oxygen (LOX) may be less convenient to transport and manage but doesn’t have nitrous’ particular unpredictabilities.
It also performs much better, whether with hybrids or liquids. This is very bad news. If you don’t know what caused an accident, it’s very difficult to know how to prevent it from recurring. Even if it causes a delay in the schedule, I think that they will have to go to some other design, and I also think (as I’ve always thought) that they should subcontract it out to an established propulsion house, such as HMX or XCOR, who are right there on the field.
Maybe when Burt has recovered from his recent health problems, he’ll be in better shape to grasp that nettle than he has been.
Disappearing Art
We’re losing our movies:
The report’s authors state the data explosion could turn into digital movie extinction, unless the studios push the development of storage standards and data management practices that will guarantee long-term access of their content.
As the report points out, even if a 100-year black box were invented that “read data reliably without introducing any errors, required no maintenance and offered sufficient bit density at an affordable price,” there would be nobody alive capable of repairing it if that box were to fail at 99 years. In the real world of data management, digital assets are stored on media with longevities much less than 100 years, vulnerable to temperature changes, humidity and static electricity. It can be misidentified, inadequately indexed and difficult to track.
Also, whereas a well-preserved 35mm negative has traditionally contained enough information to fulfill any requirement for ancillary markets, there’s a question in the minds of some industry observers about whether the quality of masters archived in digital formats will be sufficient for quality duplication. In an age when home movie systems can often provide a better experience than some commercial theaters, that’s not an unimportant concern.
This is a problem that cryonicists face as well. How do you preserve the data that defines your life and identity over an indefinite period of time? No static media can be relied on–they all deteriorate eventually. I know that I have lots of floppies from the eighties that are probably unreadable now.
Data is going to have to be stored dynamically, and continually moved to new systems as the technology evolves. It will also have to be stored holographically, and distributed. Fortunately, the costs of digital data storage are plunging, with terabyte drives now available for the cost of multi-megabytes twenty years ago, and that trend is likely to continue as we get into molecular storage.
Quad Cores For Everyone!
But no ponies. A look at the near future of microprocessors.
I find it amusing that so many people will be using quad-core machines for word processing and email. On the other hand, we’ll probably need that kind of processing power to filter all the spam.
Face(book) Value
Jay Garmon dissects a dumb statistical correlation between SAT scores and “favorite” SF&F books. I found it interesting that there were no works by Neil Stephenson on the chart.
Deconstructing McCain
Mickey Kaus is on the job:
McCain said he had “respect” for opponents of his immigration plan (which he didn’t renounce) “for I know that the vast majority of critics to the bill based their opposition in a principled defense of the rule of law.” Not like those others who base their opposition on bigoted yahoo nativism! McCain’s semi-conciliatory words aren’t what you say when you really respect your opposition–then you say “I know we have honest disagreements.” Not “I know most of you aren’t really racists.” Even his suckup betrayed how he really feels. Which I suspect is sneering contempt!
He doesn’t quite have that faking sincerity thing down.
“A Feature, Not A Bug”
T. M. Lutas has some observations on the concern among the military for the modern political class in the west”
…we’ve always had the best military toys. But that technological line ended with the invention of the nuclear weapon. Once you can destroy the planet, where else is there to go in terms of outright destructiveness? We’re trying to continue to improve by enhancing the precision of our violence but in the face of a force that wants terror, imprecision is a feature, not a bug.
Read the whole thing.
The danger we are confronting now is that mass destruction is coming into the hands of individuals, and it’s going to continue to get worse. A policy of “non-interventionism” is not just futile, but suicidal, in such a world.
“A Feature, Not A Bug”
T. M. Lutas has some observations on the concern among the military for the modern political class in the west”
…we’ve always had the best military toys. But that technological line ended with the invention of the nuclear weapon. Once you can destroy the planet, where else is there to go in terms of outright destructiveness? We’re trying to continue to improve by enhancing the precision of our violence but in the face of a force that wants terror, imprecision is a feature, not a bug.
Read the whole thing.
The danger we are confronting now is that mass destruction is coming into the hands of individuals, and it’s going to continue to get worse. A policy of “non-interventionism” is not just futile, but suicidal, in such a world.
“A Feature, Not A Bug”
T. M. Lutas has some observations on the concern among the military for the modern political class in the west”
…we’ve always had the best military toys. But that technological line ended with the invention of the nuclear weapon. Once you can destroy the planet, where else is there to go in terms of outright destructiveness? We’re trying to continue to improve by enhancing the precision of our violence but in the face of a force that wants terror, imprecision is a feature, not a bug.
Read the whole thing.
The danger we are confronting now is that mass destruction is coming into the hands of individuals, and it’s going to continue to get worse. A policy of “non-interventionism” is not just futile, but suicidal, in such a world.
How Well Do You Know Europe?
I only came into the top third. But that was on my first try. I’m sure with practice I could get a lot higher.