Technology and Society

Mass Exodus of Davids

Rand Simberg has already covered an Army of Davids here. Consider that some of the last vestiges of the old media that author Glenn Reynolds eulogizes. Simberg got a pre-print, I didn’t. There will soon be scant difference between the press and the public making the question of who to receive a pre-print something to be settled in shades of gray by Slash Dot ratings and auctions. That will make it easier for a media outsider like me to compete on a level playing field with more traditional media that gets their books early.

Reynolds’s book stands at the precipice of the future and treating different subjects seeks to penetrate the “fog of war” obscuring what will happen shortly. In places, Reynolds is foresighted and confident, especially in areas far along the path to individual control. In others, he seems flummoxed to explain what lies right around the corner despite having a well developed theory in another context.

In this extended review, I will take many of Reynolds’s claims and incomplete predictions and fill them out and complete them.

Continue reading Mass Exodus of Davids →

Space

A Summary of What’s New from SpaceX

The news is coming fast from from SpaceX and Musk.

  • Keith Cowing told us about Dragon on March 6.
  • Alan Boyle asked one of the questions I wanted to ask him, “Do you talk to Jeff Bezos?” Yes occasionally. “Musk … will probably seek outside funding once the company has a few successful launches under its belt.”
  • Jon Goff’s supposition that Dragon development has not require more than $100 million founder funding was confirmed with Musk by Boyle

Makes my interview (part 1 and 2) of Dianne Molina, Marketing Manager at SpaceX just the tip of the iceberg.

Space

A Summary of What’s New from SpaceX

The news is coming fast from from SpaceX and Musk.

  • Keith Cowing told us about Dragon on March 6.
  • Alan Boyle asked one of the questions I wanted to ask him, “Do you talk to Jeff Bezos?” Yes occasionally. “Musk … will probably seek outside funding once the company has a few successful launches under its belt.”
  • Jon Goff’s supposition that Dragon development has not require more than $100 million founder funding was confirmed with Musk by Boyle

Makes my interview (part 1 and 2) of Dianne Molina, Marketing Manager at SpaceX just the tip of the iceberg.

Space

A Summary of What’s New from SpaceX

The news is coming fast from from SpaceX and Musk.

  • Keith Cowing told us about Dragon on March 6.
  • Alan Boyle asked one of the questions I wanted to ask him, “Do you talk to Jeff Bezos?” Yes occasionally. “Musk … will probably seek outside funding once the company has a few successful launches under its belt.”
  • Jon Goff’s supposition that Dragon development has not require more than $100 million founder funding was confirmed with Musk by Boyle

Makes my interview (part 1 and 2) of Dianne Molina, Marketing Manager at SpaceX just the tip of the iceberg.

Technology and Society

The Energy Source Of The Future

That’s what fusion has always been called. The old joke is that it’s the energy source of the future, and it always will be. Back in the seventies, we used to talk about the fusion constant–forty years–as the time it would take until fusion became commercially viable. That glorious day continues to recede off into the future. Now we learn that a leading researcher in the field threw in the towel shortly before he died.

I’m not as pessimistic, but I can see how someone could get discouraged after devoting one’s life to the goal and seeing so little progress. I think that we probably will still need better materials, but I wouldn’t give up hope yet. On the other hand, I wouldn’t bet on it, either–we need to be working on a number of fronts (including space power).

[Update a few minutes later]

I’d still like to hold out hope for fusion propulsion, even if it won’t be practical for electric power generation. How much harder/easier is that problem? It’s one that hasn’t gotten as much effort, but it’s not clear whether or not if you get one, you get the other.

Political Commentary

Losers

Jason Zengerle isn’t impressed with Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s attitude about “winning”:

If there’s one animating idea that’s shared by liberal bloggers like Kos and Atrios and all the others, it’s, as Wallace-Wells called it, “the ideology of winnerism.”

Which is why it’s bizarre that these very same bloggers are always so eager to celebrate moral victories. After Howard Dean went down to defeat, they boasted about how they took a virtual nobody to the precipice of victory. Ditto for Paul Hackett. And the same thing is happening today now that Ciro Rodriguez–the former Texas congressman who became a blog darling after his Democratic primary opponent, incumbent Congressman Henry Cuellar, was shown hugging President Bush at the State of the Union–has apparently lost…

…But more often than not, these liberal bloggers (especially Kos) act like they already have taken over the world–writing manifestoes, issuing threats, and engaging in all sorts of chest-thumping behavior. But, like I said, their batting average is still a big fat zero.

What was it I called people who win “moral” victories? Oh, now I remember…

War Commentary

A River In Egypt

Tony Blankley writes about institutions in denial:

The media has pointed out that there is no evidence he was connected to Al Qaeda or another terrorist cell. But that is exactly the point. As I discussed in my book last year, the threat to the West is vastly more than bin Laden and Al Qaeda (although that would be bad enough.)

The greater danger is the ferment in Islam that is generating radical ideas in an unknown, but growing percentage of grass-roots Muslims around the world — very much including in Europe and, to a currently lesser extent, in the United States.

A nation cannot design (and maintain public support for) a rational response to the danger if the nature and extent of the danger is not identified, widely reported and comprehended.

What are we dealing with? A few maladjusted “youth”? Or a larger and growing number of perfectly well-adjusted men and women — who just happen to be adjusted to a different set of cultural, religious (or distorted religious) and political values. And does it matter that those values are inimical to western concepts of tolerance, democracy, equality and religious freedom?

The public has the right and vital need to have the events of our time fully and fairly described and reported. But a witch’s brew of psychological denial and political correctness is suppressing the institutional voices of government, police, schools, universities and the media when it comes to radical Islam.

Space

Come See The Show

…if you’re in the Salt Lake City area today. Scott Lowther writes:

If you’re in the Salt Lake area tomorrow, come see the RSRM firing at ATK-Thiokol., scheduled for 1 PM. I’ve seen two… impressive as all get-out. Plus, it brings in every bald eagle for forty miles.

Why the eagles?

The two theories that do make a measure of sense to me are:

1) Some form of curiousity at the *extremely* loud noise with the very low tones.

2) The ground vibrations that are set up *may* cause subsurface critters for miles around to come boiling out… rats, mice, voles, snakes, etc, and the eagles have learned there are easy meals to be had when that particular dinner bell rings.

[Update late morning[

Where in the heck did the phrase “all get-out” come from, anyway. What does that mean?

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!