Thanks for the good wishes, Andrew, but that’s already a forlorn hope, both literally (my back is (figuratively) killing me) and figuratively.
Culture and games
I firmly believe that the single most important area of scientific research is cognitive psychology (the rigorous branch of psych, not the motherlovin’ it’s-just-a-cigar-to-me-but-you’re-a-pervert freudian crap). There’s an interesting article on the results of a cross cultural comparison of behavior in some simple games here. This sort of thing helps get at what human nature really is and what’s just cultural overlay. The results are interesting, and generate more questions than answers, but at least the questions are well posed.
btw, welcome back, Rand. I hope the moving problems resolve painlessly.
A Blogger’s Work Is Never Done
I’m back in CA. We didn’t make as much progress unpacking as I’d hoped, and Patricia’s computer didn’t survive the trip to Florida. It arrived sufficiently addled that, upon boot, it shows a crazed scattering of phosphor trails across the screen, though which one can barely make out the Award logo of the BIOS, after which it attempts to load Windows, and then bluescreens with obscure messages in various dialects of Greek and hex. My machine came up OK, but we don’t yet have an internet connection there, or even phone service, so I’ve been cut off from civilization (or, at least, the blogosphere) all weekend. Thanks to Andrew for keeping the ball rolling with some interesting posts.
Because I was away, some of the lowest forms of life imaginable managed to attack my comments section with spam of the most vile nature on Sunday, most of which involved websites hawking variants on b3stiality, r@pe and inc3st, sometimes in varying combinations. Normally, I catch these after the first two or three, after which they’re banned, but my absence gave them free rein for hours and days, and for some reason, MT Blacklist doesn’t seem to remove all comments with banned URLs (at least for me)–it only deletes them one at a time, so I spent the first hour back on line cleaning up the mess. (By the way, Andrew, I don’t get emails of comments to your posts, so you should keep an eye out as well, as they age like fine wine and thus become more attractive to the scumbuckets. If you get one, let me know, and I’ll show you the drill.)
If anyone has any suggestions as to what may have gone astray with the computer, let me know. I’m guessing it’s a MB problem. I’ve had problems in the past while moving equipment in which cables came loose, but it’s hard to imagine how that would cause a weird screen display even before POST.
A Blogger’s Work Is Never Done
I’m back in CA. We didn’t make as much progress unpacking as I’d hoped, and Patricia’s computer didn’t survive the trip to Florida. It arrived sufficiently addled that, upon boot, it shows a crazed scattering of phosphor trails across the screen, though which one can barely make out the Award logo of the BIOS, after which it attempts to load Windows, and then bluescreens with obscure messages in various dialects of Greek and hex. My machine came up OK, but we don’t yet have an internet connection there, or even phone service, so I’ve been cut off from civilization (or, at least, the blogosphere) all weekend. Thanks to Andrew for keeping the ball rolling with some interesting posts.
Because I was away, some of the lowest forms of life imaginable managed to attack my comments section with spam of the most vile nature on Sunday, most of which involved websites hawking variants on b3stiality, r@pe and inc3st, sometimes in varying combinations. Normally, I catch these after the first two or three, after which they’re banned, but my absence gave them free rein for hours and days, and for some reason, MT Blacklist doesn’t seem to remove all comments with banned URLs (at least for me)–it only deletes them one at a time, so I spent the first hour back on line cleaning up the mess. (By the way, Andrew, I don’t get emails of comments to your posts, so you should keep an eye out as well, as they age like fine wine and thus become more attractive to the scumbuckets. If you get one, let me know, and I’ll show you the drill.)
If anyone has any suggestions as to what may have gone astray with the computer, let me know. I’m guessing it’s a MB problem. I’ve had problems in the past while moving equipment in which cables came loose, but it’s hard to imagine how that would cause a weird screen display even before POST.
A Blogger’s Work Is Never Done
I’m back in CA. We didn’t make as much progress unpacking as I’d hoped, and Patricia’s computer didn’t survive the trip to Florida. It arrived sufficiently addled that, upon boot, it shows a crazed scattering of phosphor trails across the screen, though which one can barely make out the Award logo of the BIOS, after which it attempts to load Windows, and then bluescreens with obscure messages in various dialects of Greek and hex. My machine came up OK, but we don’t yet have an internet connection there, or even phone service, so I’ve been cut off from civilization (or, at least, the blogosphere) all weekend. Thanks to Andrew for keeping the ball rolling with some interesting posts.
Because I was away, some of the lowest forms of life imaginable managed to attack my comments section with spam of the most vile nature on Sunday, most of which involved websites hawking variants on b3stiality, r@pe and inc3st, sometimes in varying combinations. Normally, I catch these after the first two or three, after which they’re banned, but my absence gave them free rein for hours and days, and for some reason, MT Blacklist doesn’t seem to remove all comments with banned URLs (at least for me)–it only deletes them one at a time, so I spent the first hour back on line cleaning up the mess. (By the way, Andrew, I don’t get emails of comments to your posts, so you should keep an eye out as well, as they age like fine wine and thus become more attractive to the scumbuckets. If you get one, let me know, and I’ll show you the drill.)
If anyone has any suggestions as to what may have gone astray with the computer, let me know. I’m guessing it’s a MB problem. I’ve had problems in the past while moving equipment in which cables came loose, but it’s hard to imagine how that would cause a weird screen display even before POST.
Top 10 Reasons NOT to go into space
Via RocketForge, apparently one of the things that came up at the recent ISDC conference was 10 reasons not to go into space.
I particularly like #9 Space is “just another rich white guy’s playground”, kind of like the deep ocean is just another rich white guy’s playground, right? In the short term, space development will quite likely involve rich white guys getting their jollies. The RWGs will subsidize technology development that will get the rest of us up there. Sounds great to me – after all, joyrides into space will have a lot better impact on the long term future of humanity than an equivalent amount of money spent on a game fishing vacation.
Incidentally, it looks like there’s an NSS blog now, with Arthur Smith at the helm (or at least lurking in the pilothouse 🙂 I look forward to reading it.
Spaceflight legislation languishes
Who is Armed Liberal?
Over at Winds of Change my favorite member of the WoC crew has decided to drop the pseudonym and let us know that Armed Liberal is Marc Danziger. He’s the new C.O.O. of Spirit of America, a charity that’s working to make life better for Iraqis and in doing so portray America in a more favorable light. I’ve said before that the current conflict is all about perceptions. Spirit of America is on track to make us all safer by making it harder for the enemy to recruit. I believe that efforts like this will have a greater effect in the long run than any purely military operation (which is not to suggest that military operations are unneccessary in the short term). Check out the site and see if you can help out.
Latest Armadillo Update
…is here. Two movies of flights, including a minor prang.
Nice Introduction To Airfoils
I came across a rather nice little page on aerodynamics for nonspecialists today. I’ve been slowly teaching myself the basics needed to understand the design of aircraft, and this page provided some good simple background. Plenty of pictures, and clear text.