Maybe last year? All I know is that, historically, it’s unusual for Congress to pass a NASA authorization bill. Usually the thing dies, in committee or because it never makes it through conference, and NASA ends up just working off the appropriation. Traditionally, there has never been much pressure to pass one, because it’s largely viewed as symbolic anyway, and the appropriations bill (which actually funds the programs) is the only one that really counts. But with the new authorization for larger prizes, it’s a great symbol this year.
Maybe last year? All I know is that, historically, it’s unusual for Congress to pass a NASA authorization bill. Usually the thing dies, in committee or because it never makes it through conference, and NASA ends up just working off the appropriation. Traditionally, there has never been much pressure to pass one, because it’s largely viewed as symbolic anyway, and the appropriations bill (which actually funds the programs) is the only one that really counts. But with the new authorization for larger prizes, it’s a great symbol this year.
I won the Space Show’s first ever message to space competition. There are six this year. The rules of the contest allow a one-page message that takes no more than five minutes to read. My winning message in full:
A robot that is self aware. Is it too early to form PETR (People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots)?
I’ll personally be interested to see if it starts touching itself improperly.
Seriously, I’ve done this experiment myself with both of my cats. They clearly recognize themselves in the mirror, because they don’t get upset (as they generally would) at the sight of another cat.
Miranda Devine says that many of the problems in Sydney are a result of years of lax law enforcement against the Lebanese Muslim gangs. I disagree with this, though:
Rather than a problem of race, religion or multiculturalism, Sydney is suffering from a longstanding crime problem. It is a textbook case of how soft policing and lenient magistrates embolden successive waves of criminals, infecting other people who might otherwise have been law-abiding.
But that begs the question of why the policing was soft, and the magistrates lenient. Ultimately, I think it still comes back to a misplaced multiculturalism, and an unwillingness to crack down on religious minorities, even when they were breeding a culture of intolerance and criminality.
Out Of The Cradle notes a new program to look for errant objects:
When fully operational, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) project will deeply scan most of the night sky several times a month. About three-quarters of the sky are visible from the Hawaiian Islands, and Pan-STARRS will use four linked telescopes connected to its enormous cameras to take broad pictures of unprecedented detail. Objects as dim as 24th magnitude
There’s quite a bit of discussion in Sam’s post, some of which expresses appropriate concern about how long we have to put up with a modest (and sorry, that’s all it is, despite all the nonsense about living in a police state under Bushitler) suspension of some of the civil liberties that many of us had taken for granted, given that we don’t have a declared war, and that it’s not clear when it will be over. Tigerhawk has an excellent essay on that subject.
At least that’s what the story says. Question to the copy editor who wrote the headline, though–who taught the moose’s son to play the sax? It reminds me of the old joke that Groucho told about shooting an elephant in his pajamas.
Here’s a contest, for the best guess at what the song was. Somehow I doubt if it was “Embraceable You…”