Michael Yon, with more signs that the war is over, and Al Qaeda defeated.
Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John
“Tell The Christians To Come Home”
Michael Yon, with more signs that the war is over, and Al Qaeda defeated.
Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John
NIST/NSA “Have Some Explaining To Do”
Bruce Schneier wonders if there is a back door in a NIST/NSA-approved random number generator. This seems like a good market opportunity for Jeff Manber.
NIST/NSA “Have Some Explaining To Do”
Bruce Schneier wonders if there is a back door in a NIST/NSA-approved random number generator. This seems like a good market opportunity for Jeff Manber.
NIST/NSA “Have Some Explaining To Do”
Bruce Schneier wonders if there is a back door in a NIST/NSA-approved random number generator. This seems like a good market opportunity for Jeff Manber.
An Interesting COTS Discussion
Over at Space Politics.
I have to confess that I don’t envy Neil Woodward–I have no idea what should be done with COTS. It may well be that there is a fundamental impedance mismatch between available dollars and market, but we’re in uncharted territory here. I do agree that the RpK protest is one of sheer desperation, and as is noted over there, if successful could essentially wipe out the Space Act, which has been able to provide NASA and other agencies with flexibility for procurement innovation. It also seems to me like a way to guarantee no reaward to them in the current bidding round. If I were them, I’d be more focused on Bigelow than COTS right now. It seems to me that’s a more promising market with which to persuade investors to ante up than COTS is.
Carnival Of Space
This week’s edition is up over at Riding With Robots.
My Current Pick
Larry Kudlow apparently interviewed Fred Thompson today for his CNBC show. I didn’t see it, but he has provided what he thinks is a summary of the results.
If it is an accurate assessment of his positions, there is absolutely nothing on which I disagree with him related there. Which is pretty amazing to me, because that’s unusual, if not a first, for a major party politician with me.
Cheaper Solar Cells
Maybe fifty percent cheaper.
I’d seriously consider a rooftop system here in south Florida if that happened. Those kinds of prices would seriously reduce payback time.
Scale Matters
I think that Megan McArdle (and Tyler Cowen) has a good explanation for one of the reasons that space policy, and NASA is such a mess. It has too much money:
In an altogether excellent piece on medical innovation, Tyler Cowen notes:
The NIH works as well as it does because the money is mostly protected from Congress. It is not a success which can easily be replicated. The more money is at stake, the more Congress wants to influence allocation. We should guard this feature of the system jealously and try to learn from it. If we can.
This is a seriously, seriously underrated factor in public policy analysis, and I include the libertarian variety. The fact that you can do something awesome with $15 million does not mean that you could do something super-awesome with $150 million. It may simply not be possible to broaden what you are doing very much before countervailing forces–such as congressional interference (Exhibit A: the goddamn Acela)–kick in.
This is a fundamental problem of bureaucracies, and one that won’t be fixed with regard to space until private activities are much larger than government ones. Or actual space accomplishments become politically important. They certainly aren’t currently, and haven’t been since the sixties.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of Megan, she’s spending some time in Hanoi, and has a lot of interesting posts about Vietnam. Check out this one, on the state of the economy and human productivity:
The sight of people carrying goods in traditional ways, selling produce off the backs of bicycles, looks terribly romantic. I walked past two tourists today who were agreeably chatting about how beautiful and sustainable it all is. But it’s hard to find anything romantic about human beings using themselves as mules.
As one commenter notes, wealth doesn’t just happen on its own (or rather, it does if not prevented by poor governance), and unfortunately, collectivist economic theories tend to destroy, rather than create it.