Maybe I should try this .sig on Usenet:
Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home.
Armadillo Uprising
In the wake of last week’s tragedy, Leonard David has a report on space marsupial progress. He also has a roundup of reactions to the Mojave deaths.
No Time To Quit
Optimism about Iraq, from unlikely sources:
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated
Freezing Or Uploading?
Ron Bailey has a dispatch from last week’s transhumanist think-in in Chicago.
A New Oxymoron
Kind of like jumbo shrimp. An odorless durian? It seems to me that it sort of defeats the purpose. You can’t really separate odor from taste, because odor is a vital part of taste (people who can’t smell have taste suppression as well). It might be some interesting new fruit with an interesting taste, but it wouldn’t be durian.
Sociable Robots
A long but interesting article on the history, and current state of the art:
Cog was designed to learn like a child, and that
Max Population Predicted
The cover story inThe Economist this week predicts that population will peak this century:
Last year the United Nations said it thought the world’s average fertility would fall below replacement by 2025. Demographers expect the global population to peak at around 10 billion (it is now 6.5 billion) by mid-century.
This peak is only temporary. Fertility plotted vs. money income is U-shaped. Poor can’t afford family planning, but the rich want to have kids.
They further opine:
States should not be in the business of pushing people to have babies.
Yes they should. A baby will become a taxpayer and a useful citizen. Zero population growth did far more to hold back development of China and India than Reagan’s (anti-) family planning policies.
We can grow food indoors, reuse our water and get the energy to do it from carbon free sources. The carrying capacity of the Earth is easily one trillion people. At the current rate of waste heat per person, we would be generating only 2% of what we get from the Sun. We could site 72 billion at the density of the Netherlands, 3.8 trillion at the density of Manhattan with the current land area.
Sad Day
From a statement from members of the Personal Spaceflight Federation:
We will persevere
Space Utopianism
Thomas James righteously rails against it. If humans settle space, we will take human institutions with us, and the ones that have proven successful here will do so there as well.
You’d Think We Have Enough ITAR Problems
…without it being administered by imbeciles.