The April issue of Physics Today has a bunch of articles on planetary science, though only two are available without subscription. The Mars water article looks particularly good, and it’s one of the free ones.
Incidentally, in the letters section there’s a response to a naive letter about the roots of terrorism in a previous issue which hits the nail on the head.
I had a chance to talk to Rand at SA’04 and he said I should just post whatever was on my mind and not worry about consistency with the previous course of TTM, which had been a concern for me since I’m 99% aligned with Rand on space policy and much less so on terrestrial politics. Since my Dad’s death I’ve found myself less willing to keep my mouth shut about these things (for reasons which I’m not going to go into right now), so I wanted to check things out with Rand before diving back in. Now that I’ve cleared down some of my to do list I’ll resume posting, and we can see how things work out. I suspect that the upcoming election fight will have us all longing for the solemn dignity of monkeys throwing poo, but hopefully TTM will stay far enough above the fray to avoid the splatter.
I’m having the house exterior painted in preparation for renting it out. We once had a healthy crop of English ivy on it, and after removing it, it left many old tendrils in the stucco that I’ve always found impossible to remove, so persistent are the roots. I’ve tried power washing, to little avail, and thought that it would be a long and tedious job with a wire brush, perhaps combined with some sort of acid. I even asked on a home repair newsgroup, but no one had any obvious easy solution.
But I’m sitting here watching the painters prep the house, and they’re doing what’s obvious in retrospect. They fired up a little propane torch, and simply burn them off, followed by brushing off the ashes. Why didn’t I think of that?
I’m having the house exterior painted in preparation for renting it out. We once had a healthy crop of English ivy on it, and after removing it, it left many old tendrils in the stucco that I’ve always found impossible to remove, so persistent are the roots. I’ve tried power washing, to little avail, and thought that it would be a long and tedious job with a wire brush, perhaps combined with some sort of acid. I even asked on a home repair newsgroup, but no one had any obvious easy solution.
But I’m sitting here watching the painters prep the house, and they’re doing what’s obvious in retrospect. They fired up a little propane torch, and simply burn them off, followed by brushing off the ashes. Why didn’t I think of that?
I’m having the house exterior painted in preparation for renting it out. We once had a healthy crop of English ivy on it, and after removing it, it left many old tendrils in the stucco that I’ve always found impossible to remove, so persistent are the roots. I’ve tried power washing, to little avail, and thought that it would be a long and tedious job with a wire brush, perhaps combined with some sort of acid. I even asked on a home repair newsgroup, but no one had any obvious easy solution.
But I’m sitting here watching the painters prep the house, and they’re doing what’s obvious in retrospect. They fired up a little propane torch, and simply burn them off, followed by brushing off the ashes. Why didn’t I think of that?
Jeff Foust has a good overview of the current regulatory and insurance situation for reusable launch vehicles, based on talks by Jeff Greason, Jim Muncy and George Nield.
[Update on Tuesday afternoon]
More related discussion over at Space Politics.
A Saudi Imam has praised the “resistance” to the American occupation of Iraq.
You may not be totally shocked to learn that he also laments that “our Palestinian brethren in Palestine are suffering from state terrorism by the Zionist entity, which carries out assassinations of Palestinian leaders,” while doing nothing to diminish their plight, other than supporting continued murder against innocent Israelis.
I thought that would be more kind than “I don’t fall, that son-of-a-bitch sand ran into me.”
Of course, the worst thing about this, from the standpoint of the Kerry campaign, has to be the picture. It’s no Dukakis in a tank, but it’s definitely geek central, even without the daisy zipper pull.
I thought that would be more kind than “I don’t fall, that son-of-a-bitch sand ran into me.”
Of course, the worst thing about this, from the standpoint of the Kerry campaign, has to be the picture. It’s no Dukakis in a tank, but it’s definitely geek central, even without the daisy zipper pull.
I thought that would be more kind than “I don’t fall, that son-of-a-bitch sand ran into me.”
Of course, the worst thing about this, from the standpoint of the Kerry campaign, has to be the picture. It’s no Dukakis in a tank, but it’s definitely geek central, even without the daisy zipper pull.