Red tape continues to need cutting. Food labeling remains stupid, particularly in terms of calorie counting. And Schumer continues to be a derriere fedora.
SN4 Success So Far
The prototype finally passed a cryo pressure test.
Space Startups And The Plague
Rick Tumlinson has a pretty good op-ed.
The FDA Strikes Again
People with Apple watches could be monitoring their oxygen levels, but the regulators require that the ability be disabled for users. This is classic regulatory capture by the industry.
Recurring Infections
The bad news is that WHO says that there is no evidence that getting an infection prevents a recurrence. The good news is that WHO has not been a particularly reliable source of information.
[Update a while later]
They’ve retracted:
Effects Of Lockdown
Two California doctors say that it doesn’t reduce the number of deaths.
Of course, since they’re not from coastal California, they’re not really California doctors.
CATS
A DVD autopsy of one of the worst flicks ever made.
Space Resources
Glenn told me a few days ago that he was working on a piece for the Journal. It’s up now (but paywalled). He has an excerpt.
[Friday update]
Chris Johnson, of the Secure World Foundation, has a long disquisition explaining the background and purpose of the Executive Order.
[Bumped]
[Update Sunday morning]
Another take from Professor Michelle Hanlon. And a longer-than-necessary one from Dimitra Stefoudi.
[Bumped again]
Good Riddance
Looks like they opened the box, and the fat little dictator is dead.
Unfortunately, no reason to think that whoever replaces him will be better.
Computer Fun
Patricia’s machine has been acting up for months, dying unexpectedly. I tried replacing CPU, memory, and power supply. Also cleaned the CPU heat sink. But to no avail, and now it shuts down almost immediately after boot. So it’s probably the motherboard.
And of course you can’t buy new FM-2 mobos any more, so it means new processor and memory as well, plus a graphics card, because the Ryzen doesn’t support on-board integrated graphics. So we just had to lay out about $600 for an upgrade, but it will be a much better machine, with a Ryzen 5 3600X (same as mine) and 32G of RAM in a single stick (upgradable to 128G). It will also be able to support multiple monitors. Unfortunately, it won’t be here before Tuesday.
[Sunday-morning update]
Wow, time flies. I just realized from an old blog post that her mobo was five years old.