Popular Culture

Coming Attractions

I can’t wait to see this piece from the ‘Hawk:

I must remain tight-lipped, but can tell you my assignment involves Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Pancho Villa, nuclear radiation, lost treasure, Mexican carnival sideshows, Tom Wolfe, alien autopsies, satanists, tequila, John Wesley Hardin, chupacabras, Aztec blood sacrifice, Mexican outlaw biker gangs, my dad, Pershing missiles, porn shops, peyote, Billy the Kid, eating brains, and a cursed hot rod.

I am not making any of this up.

Hunter Thompson, except without the drugs (other than the tequila…well, and the peyote), and a lot funnier I’ll wager.

Administrative

In NM

I got in last night, but the advertised wireless in my hotel didn’t work. I did manage to get a late dinner at the Frontier Restaurant on Central. Not a bad Mexican combo.

I had a meeting out at Kirtland this morning, and I’m heading down to Las Cruces soon. I hope that the wireless at my hotel down there isn’t falsely advertised.

[Evening update]

I arrived without incident. I actually did consider taking the scenic drive recommended in comments, just based on how it looked on the map, but I decided that I’d be doing half of it in the dark. Maybe some other time.

And thankfully (again per comments) my Albuquerque visit was carjacking free.

We’ll see how the wireless is this year out at the symposium, which starts at 8 AM tomorrow.

Media Criticism

Zero Divided By Zero = Space Solar Power

Taylor Dinerman thinks that solar power is the answer to China’s future electric power woes:

While China may turn to widespread use of nuclear power plants, the Communist Party leadership is certainly aware of the role that glasnost and the Chernobyl disaster played in the downfall of another Communist superpower. Thus, China may be reluctant to rely heavily on nuclear power plants, at least not without strong safety measures, thus making them more expensive and more time consuming to build. Wind power and terrestrial solar power will not be able to contribute much to meeting China

War Commentary

The Contrast

Michael Yon:

I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus

Space

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

The supposed derived engine from Apollo isn’t going to be very derived after all:

“This one has to generate more than 290,000 pounds of thrust,” said Mike Kynard, J-2X program manager. “Not only is the J-2X going to be more powerful, it’s going to be different. Time has seen to that. This engine has its roots in Apollo, but we aren’t just lifting their work. It’s almost a new engine.”

This notion that we were going to save money with all these new vehicles by “deriving” them from existing hardware and designs was always kind of a scam (and it’s gotten more so as the designs have departed further from the original ESAS concepts). A five-segment SRB is also essentially a new motor relative to a four-segment one, in terms of understanding the structure and stresses, particularly when all of the loads (at least for The Stick) will be compressive, rather than some from the side as they are in the current Shuttle stack. The only thing really being preserved is the very costly, but politically essential “heritage workforce.” It may be necessary for political preservation of the program in Congress, but it does nothing to reduce costs of access to space, or truly open up the frontier.

[Update a few minutes later]

Thomas James is similarly unsurprised.

[Update a few minutes later yet]

Thomas also has further thoughts on whether or not space is the new Australia (with some comments on the history of northern Michigan).

Technology and Society

Two For The Price Of One

Glenn is kvetching about having to buy both types of HD players:

The prices have dropped enough that I might be able to buy this high-rated HD-DVD player and this Sony Blu-Ray player and not spend much, if any, more. On the other hand, the notion of having to buy two just bugs me somehow.

My preference, actually, is to buy two things if I have the room, and I can afford them. Bundling functions in a single unit might seem convenient and cost saving, but the problem with it is that if one component fails, you still have to either replace the entire thing, or at least replace the functionality of the part that failed. The old example would be a combination microwave/range. The microwave dies, and you not only have to go replace it, but you can’t find a stock replacement for it that will fit the range, so you have a permanently dead microwave in your kitchen, and have to take up space with the new one on or under the counter. Unless you go out and replace the entire stove, even though the range and conventional oven are just fine.

A more recent, and mundane example is these television/DVD combos. If the TV dies, it’s become a boat anchor, unless there’s a way to get the DVD output from it to bypass the TV. Plus, some of them (amazingly) are HDTVs, with standard DVDs (hopefully, they at least do up conversion). So you get instant obsolescence, built in! My (two-channel, thank you) stereo system still uses a separate pre-amp and power amp.

A risk analyst (like yours truly in his day job) would say that by increasing the complexity you’re increasing the probability of failure (can anyone say Space Shuttle? Apparently it really bugged NASA to have to buy both a launch vehicle and an orbital laboratory…)

But I suspect that bundling is the wave of the future, particularly as electronics continues to become less and less expensive (as living space becomes more so).

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!