We put it on the market a couple weeks ago, and we got an offer of $275K on Saturday (the asking price was $280K). We counteroffered to split the difference, and they accepted it. It’s a young couple who reportedly loved the place. It’s their first house, and we’re told by the realtor that she was crying in joy, so that made us feel good. According to the realtor, everyone who saw it liked it, but apparently many thought it was priced too high. Fortunately, this couple didn’t, at least not much.
115 Years Of Powered, Controlled Flight
Fifteen years ago, on the centennial anniversary of the Wright’s first flight, I wrote three separate essays on it. One was at National Review, a second was at Fox News (though I can’t find it; the original blog post can be found here), I think, and a third was at what was then TechCentralStation, but that one seems to have succumbed to link rot. If anyone can find it, I’d appreciate it (I think the title was “Airplane Scientists”).
It’s also the fifteenth anniversary of the first time that SpaceShipOne went supersonic. Burt liked to do things on anniversaries.
[Afternoon update]
John Breen found it.
[Update a while later]
#OnThisDay in 1903, the Wright Brothers made their first flight with a powered aircraft. pic.twitter.com/0uJI6HZiSf
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) December 17, 2018
Nancy Wilson
RIP.
She wasn’t one of my top favorites, but I continue to lose the voices of my youth.
Titania McGrath
Godfrey Elfwick (who was banned from Twitter) welcomes her back. (I suspect that the same person is behind both satire accounts.)
[Saturday update]
Reflections from Titania xirself:
Indeed, Twitter’s modus operandi appears to involve routinely silencing those who defend social justice and enabling those who spread hate. In my short time on the platform, I have regularly come across hate speech from the sort of unreconstructed bigots who believe that there are only two genders, or that Islam is not a race. It’s got to the point where if someone doesn’t have “anti-fascist” in their bio, it’s safest to assume that they’re a fascist.
The permanent suspension only lasted for a day, but the experience was traumatic and lasting. I now understand how Nelson Mandela felt. If anything, my ordeal was even more damaging. Mandela may have had to endure 27 years of incarceration, but at least his male privilege protected him from ever having to put up with mansplaining, or being subject to wolf-whistling by grubby proles on a building site.
She is a true martyr.
[Bumped]
Gynecology
Teaching techniques on patients who can actually provide feedback.
What a concept. I’m continually amazed at the stupid things the medical profession does, just because “that’s how we’ve always done it.” I also think there remains a lot of rampant sexism in the profession, with deleterious effects on womens’ health.
ObamaCare
I disagree about pre-existing conditions, though. That requirement completely screws up the insurance markets. We need a different solution for that issue.
Stop The Personal Attacks And Answer The Climate Questions
Thoughts from Tim Ball on ad homimem and ad verecundiam.
Train Wreck
Will Gavin Newsom finally put an end to the not-so-high-speed madness?
The Weekly Standard
It’s shutting down, after twenty-three years. Probably a victim of its anti-Trump behavior.
Here are the three pieces that I wrote for it, the most recent being my obituary of Jerry Pournelle. When I read my criticism of SLS from 2011, it seems prescient.
There’s a lot of talent there, from Steve Hayes to Adam Keiper and Jonathan Last, and Haley Byrd. Hopefully they’ll land on their feet.
[Late-morning update]
Thoughts from Rod Dreher.
Psychological Hibernation
I suspect that if we settle space, we’ll see a lot of this sort of thing in some of the environments.