NYT columnist John Tierney has announced he will take on all people willing to bet that commodity prices will rise. He just placed a $2500 bet. He follows Julian Simon’s logic (again) that prices have gotten cheaper on everything except human labor since prices started being recorded.
Evisceration
As a grieving widow, I wonder if Lisa Ramaci-Vincent has absolute moral authority? Maybe she should camp out in front of Tisch Hall in Ann Arbor until Professor Cole meets with her. I’m sure that the media would give it big coverage…
Moveable Type Problems
Is there an MT doctor in the house? When I put up a post, it gets stuck on the “Rebuilding Page” page. And I’m no longer receiving emails of comments.
[Update a few minutes later]
I’ve disabled both comments and trackback until further notice by changing script names (otherwise I could be getting bombarded with spam, and I’d never know it). If anyone has any suggestions as to what to do, please email me ASAP. Also, is there some way to globally turn off comments on old posts?
[Update at 2:30 EDT]
OK, I’ve closed comments and trackback on all posts older than five days, and reenabled comments.
[Update at 3:30 EDT]
Well, I’ve reenabled comments, but it seems to be to no avail. It just times out now…
[Another update a couple minutes later]
OK, this is really screwed up now. Comments are working, but it doesn’t return any feedback that it is, so now I can expect a lot of multiple comments. And apparently they aren’t closed on older posts, so I’m going to disable them again.
Going For The Brass Ring
It’s not a surprise, really, but Virgin Galactic has publicly announced that the next goal after a successful SpaceShipTwo commercial suborbital service is an orbital system. I wonder what the projected schedule is for first service, and if it will end up beating the CEV into space?
Stuck In The Past
Clark Lindsey has a powerful rejoinder to a recent pessimistic article about our future in space in the Wall Street Journal, which they printed.
Recreating Art
Alan Boyle has an interesting story of forensic art history, with another demonstration of the power of the scientific method.
Death Of A Music Pioneer
Bob Moog has died. It’s hard to overestimate how much he changed the face of modern music.
In The Womb?
Via Geekpress, here’s a long but interesting article on the current state of research into the question of the origin of homosexuality. It’s also an example of pretty good science reporting in the MSM.
Too Strong A Claim
Glenn points out an article touting space elevators at IEEE Spectrum. I like space elevators, but I think that their proponents overstate the case when they say things like this:
SO WHY CAN’T WE DO ALL THIS with rockets? And why is the space elevator so cheap?
The answer is that chemical rockets are inherently too inefficient: only a tiny percentage of the mass at liftoff is valuable payload. Most of the rest is fuel and engines that are either thrown away or recycled at enormous expense.
Well, it’s a myth that “WE CANT DO ALL THIS with rockets.” Space elevators are clearly better, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t open up space without them. They are a sufficient technology, but not a necessary one. Rockets are still far from a mature technology, and the costs that he claims for the initial space elevator ($200/kg) are achievable with rockets as well, once we start flying them enough to get suitable economies of scale.
Has Howard Dean Been Visiting Ohio?
It’s a mystery in Cinci.