Weird

Auditioning For A Hitchcock Remake?

I saw this story, via Warren Bell, and was reminded that I was attacked by a bird when I was in Phoenix in April.

I was walking across a shopping mall parking lot by the hotel where I was staying, and felt something hit my right shoulder from behind. I turned around, and saw a bird hovering. I figured it was an accident, and kept walking, but a few seconds later, it did it again.

I was unsure what to do, but figured that the sooner I got to the mall entrance, the better, so I kept moving, though I didn’t run. I was wearing glasses, which I hoped would protect me if it started to peck, but fortunately it didn’t. It hit me one more time, and then flew back to a tree behind me. I figured that I may have walked to close to its nest. After that, I continued the walk to the mall entrance without further events, but I kept an eye over my shoulder.

Technology and Society

Personal Vidcams

Glenn points to this article about battlefield use of high-storage-capacity videocameras.

I suspect that it won’t be long before people start having these installed in their cars to quickly resolve disputes in accidents. It would be particularly helpful against people who deliberately cause fender benders for insurance fraud. I’d think that the insurance industry would start offering discounts for people who have them, and that eventually they’d become factory equipment.

Space

Shuttle-Derived Wet Dreams

Ed Kyle has an overview of Mike Griffin’s plans for a Shuttle-derived launch architecture.

I think that it’s a mistake to maintain the expensive Shuttle infrastructure, and an even bigger one to make the president’s vision dependent on heavy lift vehicles, particularly when there’s only one type, with no resiliency. But as Ed points out, politically, there are a lot of influential congresscritters with Shuttle employees in their districts, so pork may rule the day once again.

Political Commentary

More Bias At Google?

They seem to be quite selective about what they find “offensive”:

…while ads for the anti-Clinton book — which featured images of the book’s cover and pictures of the former first couple — were deemed offensive, the company continues to run ads for overtly liberal advertisers with headlines such as “Hate Bush? So Do We,” and “George W. Bush f@rt doll.”

I’m sure it has nothing to do with this, though:

…98 percent of all political donations by Google employees went to support Democrats.

CEO Eric Schmidt gave the maximum legal limit of donations to Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry and to primary candidate Howard Dean.

Schmidt also contributed the maximum amount to Sen. Clinton, whose role in helping her husband intimidate his female accusers is addressed in the new book.

I think I may switch to Teoma.

General

More Eurowoes

I haven’t previously commented much about it, but it’s been clear for a while that after years of losing market share to them, Boeing now has Airbus on the ropes, and even Der Spiegel is admitting it now. I think that the 380 will turn out to be a disaster for them. Of course, Boeing has to watch their back, as some of the regional jet manufacturers, like Bombardier and Embraer start grabbing market share from their smaller planes for point to point. That’s a good thing, of course, since it will restore some competition to the market that was lost when Lockheed got out of the commercial business and Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!