In both science, and journalism.
The notion that journalists are, or should be, or can be “objective” is perhaps the profession’s most fatal conceit. As Virginia Postrel says, what’s important is to be fair, something that they often don’t even attempt, as demonstrated by CNN and its performance in the debates.
From Instapundit, about last night’s “debate”:
He’s just terrible, even when — which is often, once he’s off the subject of the war — I agree with him. His voice is too high, he can’t remember who the Kurds are, and he often comes off like a crazy old man in a bus station.
But that’s good news, in a way. Paul’s doing better than anyone expected. It’s abundantly clear that he’s not doing it on charisma and rhetorical skill. Which means that libertarian ideas are actually appealing, since Ron Paul isn’t. Paul’s flaws as a vessel for those ideas prove the ideas’ appeal. If they sell with him as the pitchman, they must be really resonating. I suspect Paul himself would agree with this analysis. Er, except maybe the bus station part.
I’m glad that someone else listens to this stuff, so I don’t have to.
Oh, and speaking of Ron Paul, check out the video over at Lileks’ place:
The likelihood of a candidate
Apparently, I’m not doing enough of this:
“It was hard to believe at first,” said Marc Hamilton, associate professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia and leader of the research team. He said the team didn’t expect to find a strong signal when they began researching what happens to fat when we remain seated. But the effect, both in laboratory animals and humans, turned out to be huge.
The solution, Hamilton said, is to stand up and “putter.”
Hey, but isn’t sex good, too?
Seriously, when I was at Rockwell (a decade and a half ago) I used to do a lot of MBWA (management by walking around). It was a big plant. These days, working from home, not so much. I’ve added an inch or two to my waist. I do stand a lot, schmoozing in the hallways, when I go to a conference, every couple months, but I also notice that it kills my back. I can walk for hours, but standing is miserable, at least at the end of the day.
What to do…?
Apparently, I’m not doing enough of this:
“It was hard to believe at first,” said Marc Hamilton, associate professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia and leader of the research team. He said the team didn’t expect to find a strong signal when they began researching what happens to fat when we remain seated. But the effect, both in laboratory animals and humans, turned out to be huge.
The solution, Hamilton said, is to stand up and “putter.”
Hey, but isn’t sex good, too?
Seriously, when I was at Rockwell (a decade and a half ago) I used to do a lot of MBWA (management by walking around). It was a big plant. These days, working from home, not so much. I’ve added an inch or two to my waist. I do stand a lot, schmoozing in the hallways, when I go to a conference, every couple months, but I also notice that it kills my back. I can walk for hours, but standing is miserable, at least at the end of the day.
What to do…?
Apparently, I’m not doing enough of this:
“It was hard to believe at first,” said Marc Hamilton, associate professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia and leader of the research team. He said the team didn’t expect to find a strong signal when they began researching what happens to fat when we remain seated. But the effect, both in laboratory animals and humans, turned out to be huge.
The solution, Hamilton said, is to stand up and “putter.”
Hey, but isn’t sex good, too?
Seriously, when I was at Rockwell (a decade and a half ago) I used to do a lot of MBWA (management by walking around). It was a big plant. These days, working from home, not so much. I’ve added an inch or two to my waist. I do stand a lot, schmoozing in the hallways, when I go to a conference, every couple months, but I also notice that it kills my back. I can walk for hours, but standing is miserable, at least at the end of the day.
What to do…?
Here’s a review of Bob Zubrin’s new book
If you’re in the DC area, there’s an opportunity to hear him speak about it tomorrow night.
Inc. names Elon Musk Entrepreneur of the Year (via spacetoday.net):
The goal of putting people on Mars is no joke. Musk believes that over the four-and-a-half-billion-year history of planet Earth, a dozen or so events have truly mattered. Edging forward in his chair, he ticks off a few: “There was the advent of single-celled life, multicelled life, the development of plants, then animals,” he says. “On this time scale, I’d put the extension of life to another planet slightly above the transition from life in the oceans to life on land.”
Or in Biblical terms, Genesis, then Exodus. As Moses says, “Let my people go”. Musk is putting his growing fortune and celebrity on the line to make space settlement happen. Musk’s history of the world sounds like the preamble to Rand’s Passover-style celebration of when we first left the planet, Evoloterra. Rand, ever thought of expanding Evoloterra into a full religion?
I recently canceled my account with Vonage and on behalf of Space Shot canceled our contract with Custom Weather upon switching to AccuWeather which is free. It took about fifteen minutes to navigate all of the extra offers that Vonage wanted to make me to try to retain me. It may be good short-term business, but I felt their hard-sell tactics alienate me. I draw the line if an organization asks me “are you sure?” after I have already said I don’t want something, I complain to their customer service for being rude. They may be retaining a few extra customers, but I’ll remember how long it took to cancel the service and be less likely to buy again given the “exit tax”. These last few customers seem sub prime.
Space Shot also canceled its contract with Custom Weather. What do you think this term in my contract with them says?
…this Agreement will continue for further successive one year periods until it is terminated by either party giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice prior to the end of the initial one year period or on any subsequent anniversary of the Effective Date…
I think it means Space Shot can cancel with no notice on its second and subsequent anniversary with no notice. Space Shot also requested early termination of the current year contract which is in no way prohibited and a refund which is also consistent with policy as reported in the contract. Not acknowledged.
Custom Weather CEO, Geoff Flint wrote me:
I apologize if our lawyers did not make that clause clear enough since the “or” that you refer to is associated with the last verb which was “giving” in the clause “giving to the other not less than 90 days written notice.”
This is something that always appealed to me:
With an estimated 14 percent of Americans professing to have no religion, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies, some are choosing to send their children to classes that teach ethics without religious belief.
One of the reasons we came up with our July 20th ceremony was part of a broader effort to formalize our belief system. Several of the people that I was hanging out with at the time wanted to have a place to take their kids to learn their own belief system, rather than a Christian one.
My problem is that, while I’m not a theist, I’m not an atheist (in the sense of someone who believes there is no God) either. I’m a skeptic. In fact, the Unitarian Church can serve the function described above (I actually did attend a Unitarian Sunday school as a teenager). The problem with Unitarians is that they tend to be “progressive.”
Back in the eighties, Keith Henson and I used to occasionally discuss trying to take over, or start up, a Unitarian congregation that would be libertarian, rather than “liberal.” But it seemed like a lot of potential effort, with an uncertain outcome, and nothing ever came of it. In the nineties, he decided to crusade against Scientologists instead. It probably would have been smarter to take on the Unitarians…
Chair Force Engineer lists the technologies that need to be developed for us to become spacefaring, but are being largely ignored by NASA. I don’t agree with his prescription for a scramjet first stage for cheap launch, though. That may be the answer, some day, but it’s not obvious that it will be, and it certainly isn’t necessary to get big improvements in the near term.
But instead of making progress in these crucial areas, NASA is spending billions to return to the sixties.