A “How To Spot A Cylon” poster.
The Top Ten
Isn’t this a little premature? There are still a couple weeks left in the year. One or two of them could still get edged out.
Of course, I’m not sure that any of them top this guy:
Earl Mott: Did you just shoot at me?
Ken Kessler: No, there’s police men everywhere.
Earl Mott: Do you think that I look that stupid?
Ken Kessler: Yes, you do!
Lt. Bender: GIVE THE BAG TO BOZO, DROP THE GUN, AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.
Earl Mott: Who said that?
Lt. Walters: This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.
Lt. Bender: IT’S THE POLICE DEPARTMENT.
Earl Mott: Really?
Lt. Bender: NO! WE’RE THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION!
The Envelope, Please
Pejman has a long endorsement of Fred Thompson. I agree with most of it. If I were a Republican, he’d get my vote.
[Update in the evening]
Matt Lewis says don’t write off Fred Thompson..
[Late night update]
OK, call me crazy [raucous chorus of Transterrestrial readers: “You’re crazy!”], but I think that this could be a winning campaign ad for Fred.
Voice Of God Ray
There’s apparently a military application for what I thought was an advertising technology:
It appears that some of the troops in Iraq are using “spoken” (as opposed to “screeching”) LRAD to mess with enemy fighters. Islamic terrorists tend to be superstitious and, of course, very religious. LRAD can put the “word of God” into their heads. If God, in the form of a voice that only you can hear, tells you to surrender, or run away, what are you gonna do?
What’s cool about this weapon is that it’s one that will be particularly effective with this enemy. If it happened to me, the voice of God isn’t the first theory that I would come up with, since I’m an unbeliever, but with these guys, it probably would be.
Things Looking Up For Housing?
They are if lunar land prices are really a leading indicator. If so, I wonder why?
“Journalistic Malpractice”
Michael Totten provides a critique of one of his “colleagues” in Fallujah.
“Journalistic Malpractice”
Michael Totten provides a critique of one of his “colleagues” in Fallujah.
“Journalistic Malpractice”
Michael Totten provides a critique of one of his “colleagues” in Fallujah.
RIP XA-0.1
I read about this on Arocket last week, but Masten now has it up on their blog. They lost their test vehicle last week.
This is not a setback. It’s a learning experience, and a demonstration of the virtues of cheap incremental testing.
[Afternoon update]
Dave Masten has a good point over at Arocket:
This morning I got a phone call from the landlords (Mojave Air and Space Port folks) asking about the “explosion, injuries, cats and dogs living together” and all other sorts of terrible calamities. OK, I exaggerate a bit, but I was specifically asked about an explosion. Seems Stu Witt is in D.C. visiting FAA/AST and he was asked about an explosion, so he called his staff here in Mojave and asked about it.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that there is no physical law that says a launch vehicle must explode if something goes wrong. I know that if this were a Zenit, Delta, or STS there probably would be an explosion. But, we are not building that type of vehicle. In fact several of us on this list specifically design our vehicles and operations so that the risk of explosion is negligible. It is not difficult to do. Just starting with the assumption that safety margins are more important than payload margin takes one a very long way towards that goal. Add in a little thought about survivability of a vehicle takes one the rest of the way.
So, if I could beg a favor from those of you on this list who are with AST, please let your colleagues know that a crash of our vehicle does not imply an explosion or even a fireball.