Boeing’s Tar Baby
I wonder at what point the company will just pull the plug on Starliner? They’ve been spectacularly unimpressive, Andy Pasztor’s worship aside.
I mean, if Starship goes to orbit before they have their crewed test flight, even NASA has to say, OK, maybe we don’t need a backup from them for Dragon.
The Lockdowns
…may have had little effect on the spread of the virus.
This was shooting ourselves in the foot, on full auto.
Intermittent Fasting
I’ve been doing this for quite a while. I don’t just skip breakfast; I don’t eat anything until late afternoon. But I don’t see the relevance of this study to me, even if valid, because I don’t do it to lose weight.
If I’m losing muscle (I’m not; I never had that much to begin with), it’s because I don’t work out as I should. If I did, I’d have to increase my food uptake (and I’d gain weight, but it would be in muscle). What the eating schedule for that would have to be, I don’t know. I suspect it would just mean that I’d eat more in the evening.
Escape From 2020
If it makes you feel any better, next year may be worse.
Perrow writes about how the failure of a complex, highly-coupled system can be catastrophic. I used his book, Normal Accidents, as a source for my book.
Launch-Cost Bleg
I’m giving a talk on the economics of spaceflight on Friday in Omaha. Does anyone have a chart showing the cost per flight as a function of flight rate for both expendables and reusables? Doesn’t need to have citable numbers in it, just looking for something conceptual.
Recycling Programs
With city budgets declining, it’s time to rethink them.
It’s time to rethink lots of things, but we don’t usually do it until under duress. The virus has been helpful in that regard in many cases.
Democrats’ Reaction To Trump’s Illness
It’s about as classy as you’d expect. Kudos to Rachel Maddow, though.
Unassailable Ideas
Reviews of a new book about the cultural rot in academia.
The Right To Armed Self Defense
…in the face of abdication of law enforcement: A paper.
A reminder that the purpose of police is not to protect the public, but rather to protect the criminals from the inevitable vigilantism in their absence.
[Monday-morning update]
More thoughts at Captain’s Journal.