Ken Silber has a review of what look to be an interesting new book on exobiology.
False Consciousness
Arnold Kling talks about folk Marxism, and its unfortunate hold on much of the public, particularly in Europe, but also, sadly, in the US.
Under folk Marxism, the oppressed class has inherent moral superiority to the oppressor class… Class membership trumps individual character in determining moral standing. It should be no surprise that this belief could lead to tyranny and wanton murder by government. It should be no surprise that this belief has failed to improve the lot of those regarded as “oppressed.” It inverts Martin Luther King’s call to judge people by the content of their character.
Even when Marxism does not lead to tyranny, it retards economic growth, as the stagnation of continental Europe indicates. If you believe that the poor are oppressed and the rich are oppressors, then your impulse is to penalize work, risk-taking, innovation, and saving — the engines of economic progress.
Well, at least the Canadians are on the verge of throwing off their true oppressors today.
Root Causes
Joe Katzman has a thought-provoking and depressing post on the source of Islamic terrorism.
There was supposedly an old saying in the wild West: “There ain’t room in this town for the both of us.” Unfortunately, there’s not room on this planet for classical liberal western cultures and radical Islamism. This will be a battle to the death of one of those cultures, and Islam itself won’t survive without a dramatic reformation, even if some people think that’s not possible.
[Update at 9:25 AM PST]
Diane West writes about the silence that speaks volumes.
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Technology
There’s an interesting interview with the authors of The Rocket Company over at The Space Review today.
TSR: With all the information you’ve presented, shy of seven relatively sympathetic and understanding billionaires and an engineering group from heaven, what other missing pieces are needed for someone to develop The Rocket Company?
Dave: That
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Technology
There’s an interesting interview with the authors of The Rocket Company over at The Space Review today.
TSR: With all the information you’ve presented, shy of seven relatively sympathetic and understanding billionaires and an engineering group from heaven, what other missing pieces are needed for someone to develop The Rocket Company?
Dave: That
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Technology
There’s an interesting interview with the authors of The Rocket Company over at The Space Review today.
TSR: With all the information you’ve presented, shy of seven relatively sympathetic and understanding billionaires and an engineering group from heaven, what other missing pieces are needed for someone to develop The Rocket Company?
Dave: That
Why We Will Ultimately Win
Despite their political differences with the US (most of which are driven by totalitarian government propaganda), Syrians love KFC:
…as the country worries about bird flu, surely KFC “examines its chicken before cooking it … I trust KFC chicken more than any rotisserie”, said Farzat.
Don’t Know Much About Geography
I’m reading Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, and while it’s entertaining, I was irritated early on by technical errors in it. In the discussion about the “beanstalk” (which I can only infer is a space elevator), the supposed physics professor explains that it’s used so that that it’s not necessary to “reach escape velocity” with a rocket to get to earth orbit. Of course, it’s not necessary to reach escape velocity to get into orbit–in fact, it’s not possible to do so. Escape velocity is the velocity necessary to leave orbit, and depart from the gravitational pull of the body you’re orbiting altogether.
This one is forgiveable, though, and a common error. What really boggled my mind was the next one, in which he explained that the earth physicists didn’t understand what “held it up.”
Either Scalzi is appallingly ignorant of physics himself, or this is some future in which the people of earth have forgotten basic physics (though if that’s the case, this is the only hint of it that I’ve seen in the book so far). The physics of space elevators is well understood. A space elevator is “held up” in exactly the same way that water is held inside a bucket being swung in circles on a rope–through inertia which appears as a centrifugal “force” in the rotating reference frame. The intergrated mass of the elevator times its centripital acceleration exceeds its weight if it extends sufficiently far beyond its natural orbital altitude (in this case, geostationary orbit, since it rotates with the earth once every twenty-four hours).
Scalzi has been compared to early Heinlein by many reviewers, but Heinlein always worked pretty hard to get his basic science right (which is one of the reasons that I liked to read him–it was entertainingly educational). It’s disappointing that Scalzi doesn’t seem to take the same care in his exposition, particularly since many may take his descriptions at face value.
[Update a few minutes later]
I discussed this topic more extensively last fall.
[Sunday night update]
When I was a kid, if I had a question about one of Bob Heinlein’s books, it would remain a question. There was no place to discuss it, except with my (few) friends who’d also read the book. But now, I can read a book, I can make a comment on it, and the author himself shows up to clarify the issue in my comments section. Just how cool is that?
And I’ve no idea how he knew that I was whining about the book. I’d be both flattered and amazed to learn that he reads this blog daily, so I’m guessing that one of my other readers emailed him to tell him.
Of course, if you visit his bio section, and read the comments (including his), in addition to being a very imaginative and entertaining writer, Mr. Scalzi seems to be a genuinely good guy.
Anyway, don’t consider this post a book review. It’s just a comment that occurred to me shortly after beginning reading it. Other than what I wrote above (which may be just a consequence of misreading on my part, as noted in comments), I expect to enjoy it quite a bit.
Don’t Know Much About Geography
I’m reading Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, and while it’s entertaining, I was irritated early on by technical errors in it. In the discussion about the “beanstalk” (which I can only infer is a space elevator), the supposed physics professor explains that it’s used so that that it’s not necessary to “reach escape velocity” with a rocket to get to earth orbit. Of course, it’s not necessary to reach escape velocity to get into orbit–in fact, it’s not possible to do so. Escape velocity is the velocity necessary to leave orbit, and depart from the gravitational pull of the body you’re orbiting altogether.
This one is forgiveable, though, and a common error. What really boggled my mind was the next one, in which he explained that the earth physicists didn’t understand what “held it up.”
Either Scalzi is appallingly ignorant of physics himself, or this is some future in which the people of earth have forgotten basic physics (though if that’s the case, this is the only hint of it that I’ve seen in the book so far). The physics of space elevators is well understood. A space elevator is “held up” in exactly the same way that water is held inside a bucket being swung in circles on a rope–through inertia which appears as a centrifugal “force” in the rotating reference frame. The intergrated mass of the elevator times its centripital acceleration exceeds its weight if it extends sufficiently far beyond its natural orbital altitude (in this case, geostationary orbit, since it rotates with the earth once every twenty-four hours).
Scalzi has been compared to early Heinlein by many reviewers, but Heinlein always worked pretty hard to get his basic science right (which is one of the reasons that I liked to read him–it was entertainingly educational). It’s disappointing that Scalzi doesn’t seem to take the same care in his exposition, particularly since many may take his descriptions at face value.
[Update a few minutes later]
I discussed this topic more extensively last fall.
[Sunday night update]
When I was a kid, if I had a question about one of Bob Heinlein’s books, it would remain a question. There was no place to discuss it, except with my (few) friends who’d also read the book. But now, I can read a book, I can make a comment on it, and the author himself shows up to clarify the issue in my comments section. Just how cool is that?
And I’ve no idea how he knew that I was whining about the book. I’d be both flattered and amazed to learn that he reads this blog daily, so I’m guessing that one of my other readers emailed him to tell him.
Of course, if you visit his bio section, and read the comments (including his), in addition to being a very imaginative and entertaining writer, Mr. Scalzi seems to be a genuinely good guy.
Anyway, don’t consider this post a book review. It’s just a comment that occurred to me shortly after beginning reading it. Other than what I wrote above (which may be just a consequence of misreading on my part, as noted in comments), I expect to enjoy it quite a bit.
Don’t Know Much About Geography
I’m reading Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, and while it’s entertaining, I was irritated early on by technical errors in it. In the discussion about the “beanstalk” (which I can only infer is a space elevator), the supposed physics professor explains that it’s used so that that it’s not necessary to “reach escape velocity” with a rocket to get to earth orbit. Of course, it’s not necessary to reach escape velocity to get into orbit–in fact, it’s not possible to do so. Escape velocity is the velocity necessary to leave orbit, and depart from the gravitational pull of the body you’re orbiting altogether.
This one is forgiveable, though, and a common error. What really boggled my mind was the next one, in which he explained that the earth physicists didn’t understand what “held it up.”
Either Scalzi is appallingly ignorant of physics himself, or this is some future in which the people of earth have forgotten basic physics (though if that’s the case, this is the only hint of it that I’ve seen in the book so far). The physics of space elevators is well understood. A space elevator is “held up” in exactly the same way that water is held inside a bucket being swung in circles on a rope–through inertia which appears as a centrifugal “force” in the rotating reference frame. The intergrated mass of the elevator times its centripital acceleration exceeds its weight if it extends sufficiently far beyond its natural orbital altitude (in this case, geostationary orbit, since it rotates with the earth once every twenty-four hours).
Scalzi has been compared to early Heinlein by many reviewers, but Heinlein always worked pretty hard to get his basic science right (which is one of the reasons that I liked to read him–it was entertainingly educational). It’s disappointing that Scalzi doesn’t seem to take the same care in his exposition, particularly since many may take his descriptions at face value.
[Update a few minutes later]
I discussed this topic more extensively last fall.
[Sunday night update]
When I was a kid, if I had a question about one of Bob Heinlein’s books, it would remain a question. There was no place to discuss it, except with my (few) friends who’d also read the book. But now, I can read a book, I can make a comment on it, and the author himself shows up to clarify the issue in my comments section. Just how cool is that?
And I’ve no idea how he knew that I was whining about the book. I’d be both flattered and amazed to learn that he reads this blog daily, so I’m guessing that one of my other readers emailed him to tell him.
Of course, if you visit his bio section, and read the comments (including his), in addition to being a very imaginative and entertaining writer, Mr. Scalzi seems to be a genuinely good guy.
Anyway, don’t consider this post a book review. It’s just a comment that occurred to me shortly after beginning reading it. Other than what I wrote above (which may be just a consequence of misreading on my part, as noted in comments), I expect to enjoy it quite a bit.