Space

On The Air

The wireless is up in the room. For now.

George Nield of FAA-AST is talking, and describing the new rules for human spaceflight.

Here is Jeff Foust’s first post from the conference.

Space

Worst.Hotel.Ever

At least for a Space Access conference. There’s no broadband in the rooms. There is a wireless connection in the lobby, from which I’m posting this. Michael Mealing is attempting to set up a wireless connection in the room in which the proceedings are occuring, so we can blog from there, but there’s a problem with the network connection to the router, and there will be no resolution before tomorrow morning. The restaurant took half an hour to take out orders, and an hour to deliver them, then screwed up the check. Not to mention that my linguini was spaghetti., and overcooked.

Other than that, everything is great. Hopefully better news on the morrow.

Administrative

Heading Off To Arizona

And it looks like a beautiful day for a drive. Often when I leave LA heading east, there’s a thick marine layer, and clouds that don’t break up until Palm Springs, but it’s blue sky and mountains all the way from the beach today.

This is the most beautiful time of year in southern CA. There’s been a lot of rain and the hillsides are green in a way that they only get for a few weeks, spangled with yellow mustard flowers that make their greenness look all the brighter from a distance.

If I see anything worth taking a picture of on the trip, I’ll post later.

General

On Perfection

I don’t know if this is a Marriott thing in general, or just TownePlace Suites, but the staff there have taken to the habit of asking me upon checkout, “Did you have a perfect stay”?

I never know how to respond to this question. Perfection is a platonic ideal, never to be achieved in real life–it is a goal only to be sought. To ask someone whether or not they have achieved it is to put one on the spot. I can lie, and say yes (which no doubt many do, just to get out and on their way). Or I can tell the truth, and say no, or in an attempt to avoid the quandary, to inform them that perfection isn’t possible. This doesn’t get me off the hook–the inevitable response to either of the latter is “…well, if it wasn’t perfect, what could we have done to make it perfect?”

I don’t know.

Make it so the teevee can be viewed while working on the computer? Have wine glasses? A slightly firmer bed? Protein with the overcarbed muffins in the breakfast room? A quieter room, away from the street? Move the entire hotel to the beach? Move the entire hotel to Cabo? Open bar happy hour? Hot and cold running nymphomaniacs?

It’s an unreasonable question, and whatever marketing genius came up with it should rethink it, because it’s gotten to the point of making me not want to stay there. I think the next time they ask, I’ll say, “My stay would be perfect if you wouldn’t ask me if my stay was perfect.” Ask if it was good, if it was great, if there were any problems, but please don’t place the burden of your failure to achieve the unachievable on me.

Education

Radicalized By College

Here’s an interesting interview by a student who became a conservative as a backlash against the pervasive miasma of leftist dogma at Brown University:

I was a junior by the time I finally decided to criticize particular segments of the campus. Again, I was a football player, and that took up a lot of my time. So rather than immediately join some leftist student-group, I was forced to be a spectator of campus activism at first. There was always a lot of controversy on Brown’s campus, and I spent a lot of time observing the behavior of my classmates. I had an immediate repulsion to them for a lot of reasons. It wasn’t that I was pro-life, and they were pro-choice. Or that I was against affirmative action, and they were in favor of it. Those weren’t even opinions that I had formed or cared about. My objection to liberal activism was more about my classmates’ zealotry, and the fact that I knew I was forbidden to disagree or disapprove of them. In other words, I had a negative reaction to the ethic and demeanor of liberals before I even disagreed with liberal thought. I found Brown’s leading liberal forces to be deviant, oppressive, and improper before I reached any other conclusions. Ironically, they were viciously labeling everyone but themselves as mean, dumb, and racist. But I saw it in reverse. In fact, Out of Ivy documents the campus left’s hypocrisy, and their readiness to lie, smear, stereotype, and discriminate–all accompanied by their assertion that they were the fluffy-hearted champions of tolerance and understanding.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!