John Scalzi (whose book
Turnabout Is Fair Play
I’d love to see a class-action suit against Elliot Spitzer.
Half A Century
That’s how long it’s been since My Fair Lady was first staged. I recall my parents taking me to see the movie when it first came out in the early sixties. As the article points out, it was a groundbreaking show, in several ways, and has some of the best songs ever written.
I Can’t Read It
I almost threw my eyeballs out of their sockets in a wrenching attempt to avert my eyes from this article. Oh, well, at least it’s not about losing my male parts.
That would be harder yet. Errr…so to speak.
[Via Paul Hsieh (MD, who usually doesn’t come up with as yucky stuff as this.)]
I Can’t Read It
I almost threw my eyeballs out of their sockets in a wrenching attempt to avert my eyes from this article. Oh, well, at least it’s not about losing my male parts.
That would be harder yet. Errr…so to speak.
[Via Paul Hsieh (MD, who usually doesn’t come up with as yucky stuff as this.)]
I Can’t Read It
I almost threw my eyeballs out of their sockets in a wrenching attempt to avert my eyes from this article. Oh, well, at least it’s not about losing my male parts.
That would be harder yet. Errr…so to speak.
[Via Paul Hsieh (MD, who usually doesn’t come up with as yucky stuff as this.)]
Heinleinian or Asimovian?
Jane Galt asks an interesting question. I match to type, preferring Heinlein and being basically libertarian. The fact that Paul Krugman is an Asimov fan only confirms my preference.
I also think that people who are SF readers in general are much more prepared to deal with the future than those who are not, and this is becoming more the case over time as the pace of technological innovation continues to accelerate.
More Space Elevator Thoughts
From Henry Spencer, over at sci.space.policy:
…as Jordin Kare noted a while back, the elevator people say they could give us launch cost of a few hundred a kilogram for a ten-billion investment… but there are plenty of rocket people who think they could match or beat that launch-cost number with a lot less up-front money. “They aren’t Boeing, but neither are you.”
And the nanotube materials that the elevator people need will do wonders for rocket structure, well before they’re good enough for elevators.
Bleg To Journalism Majors
For a book I’m working on. Does anyone out there have any stories of “progressive” indoctrination as part of required courses (or just in general) in journalism schools? Email me (address at top left) if you don’t want to post publicly. The question is prompted by this post about the phenomenon in schools of education.
Do You Need A Window?
This post made me wonder–since so many people seem to prefer aisle seats, do they even care if window seats, or windows, exist? I’d be very uncomfortable sitting in a windowless aluminum tube going hundreds of miles per hour through the air, but I notice that many people in airplanes don’t look out the window at all.
I wouldn’t fly in an aircraft in which I couldn’t see out a window, at least somewhere (even if I had to walk forward in a cargo plane to find one). How many people out there are indifferent?
And on the subject of space, one of the costs of designing a passenger spacecraft is exactly this–the need to put in windows, which increase structural weight. This isn’t just because the view is a large part of the experience–I suspect that many space passengers would be just as psychologically uncomfortable in a windowless space transport as they would in a windowless aircraft.
Oh, one more thing. It’s very hard to get me into a glass elevator–there, I insist on not knowing what’s outside. The difference is that one is a vehicle, and the other is part of a structure (I’m acrophobic).
[Update on Wednesday evening]
Just to clarify, I’m not asking which seat people prefer. I’m asking how important it is that the airplane has windows, regardless of whether or not you sit next to them.