Would it be a tragedy?
Note that he doesn’t consider the possibility of homes for both humanity and other terrestrial life off planet.
FWIW, if I had to choose between saving a few lives and all of the art in the Louvre, it’s not at all obvious that the lives have higher value. I can certainly imagine some people willing to sacrifice themselves for it, but that issue isn’t in his question.
It’s scheduled to fly tomorrow morning. Wonder how many more flights they plan before test passengers?
I don’t think I ever eat any of these, other than getting ice from the fountain machine, for water. As I’ve noted in the past, eating out is bad for both your health and your budget.
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.
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
RIP.
She wasn’t one of my top favorites, but I continue to lose the voices of my youth.
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]
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.
I disagree about pre-existing conditions, though. That requirement completely screws up the insurance markets. We need a different solution for that issue.
Thoughts from Tim Ball on ad homimem and ad verecundiam.