FAA-AST has been thinking about it. A lot of these are good ideas, but I disagree that their reach should be extended into orbit.
An Interesting New Wrinkle In The Flynn Case
Over at Instapundit:
Did the prosecution tell Flynn’s lawyer that their main witness against him was removed for bias? Since Strzok led the interview and his testimony would be needed to establish untruthfulness, he is a critical witness not just a prosecutor. If not disclosed, would this not be a Giglio violation? This is the kind of misconduct that can get a case dismissed and a lawyer disbarred. It is a Constitutional violation. This has bothered me since I heard about it.
This stinks on dry ice.
I were Flynn’s lawyer, I’d petition the court to withdraw the plea on the grounds it was made on false information (that Mueller had a credible witness to Flynn’s lying). And I’d request that it be done with prejudice, and that prosecution be sanctioned. And if that’s successful, it would be grounds for demands from Republicans for Mueller’s replacement, and perhaps an end to the probe entirely, since it continued to be a dry hole.
Out Of Town
I was driving up to San Francisco yesterday, and today I’m at the Foresight Vision Weekend. There was a session on longevity (including cryonics) this morning, and now there’s a panel on blockchain and it’s potential applications. One of the panelists says that one app he’s woring is with a company that wants gas stations in space. I’ll have to talk to him later.
The Steinle Case
I’ve wondered from the beginning why the prosecution was so stupid as to attempt to convict him of first-degree murder. They never had a case (and probably not even for a manslaughter charge, though they could maybe get him for negligent or reckless homicide, but I’m not familiar with CA law about that).
Anyway, Sarah Rumpf explains the ways they screwed up. And as many have noted, the real issue was that he should never have been in the country to do this
The Password Era
Will blockchains bring it to an end?
The Flynn Plea
Andy McCarthy writes that (despite media hysteria this morning), there’s still no “there” there, at least with regard to “collusion with the Russians” (which isn’t a crime).
Markers For Heart Disease
It’s not cholesterol, and the best test is dirt cheap. An interesting interview.
Space Jobs
Donald Robertson has a crazy idea: Find something useful for people working SLS/Orion to do:
Presidents answer to the nation, not to local job concerns. Two presidents in a row — Bush and Obama — have tried in varying degrees to redirect NASA away from the Apollo model, only to be blocked by institutions and senators who are answerable to local NASA employees. This time, we cannot repeat Mr. Obama’s mistake of canceling the SLS without finding a future for the people who work on it.
The new “constellation” work needs to be planned and distributed in a way that will keep the traditional NASA workforce, and those who represent them, on board. Where is it written that engineers in Alabama cannot be employed building space-based tugs and modules for a lunar base? To have any chance of killing the SLS and replacing it with a useful space program, opponents need to come up with something that fulfills SLS’s political and economic purpose at least as well, while endeavoring to achieve something useful in space at the same time. That is beginning to occur, as NewSpace companies like SpaceX slowly expand beyond California and the Seattle area and increasingly employ people in Texas, Florida, and other traditional NASA states.
Encouraging this change will take a great deal of political capital and skill —the Bush administration did not deploy the former, and the Obama administration failed at the latter. So far, the Trump administration has shown little aptitude for any kind of positive relationship with Congress.
If someone does not come forward to invest the political and financial capital needed to end this conflict and move on to a more constructive vision, the United States will continue to drift in space. Resources will remain split between an increasingly successful but underfunded NewSpace industry unable to fulfill its potential, and the SLS and Orion, which the nation cannot afford to actually use. Our future in space will increasingly rely on largely self-funded efforts by people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
He says that like it’s a bad thing.
Meanwhile, NASA has incorporated its next planned boondoggle into human exploration plans.
A Veneer Of Certainty
How dependable is climate science?
Not enough to base energy policy on.
[Update a few minutes later]
A vigorous fisking of what Judith Curry calls “the stupidest [peer-reviewed] paper ever written.” With all respect to Professor Curry, that’s a pretty high bar, even in this field.
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, I slightly misquoted her.
This is absolutely the stupidest paper I have ever seen published https://t.co/jBSiJ1DMlL pic.twitter.com/XnuRZDrsUt
— Judith Curry (@curryja) November 29, 2017
[Update a while later]
Link is fixed, sorry!
GIMP (Again)
Is there a doctor in the house? I’m trying to paste a transparent layer in, and all I’m seeing is an outline of it. Anchoring it does nothing. This may be related: It pastes into the canvas in the upper left corner, but that isn’t part of the image I’m trying to put in into, and I don’t know how to get rid of the dead space above. This is the most infuriatingly non-obvious user interface I’ve ever seen.
[Update a couple minutes later]
OK, I got rid of the extra canvas, but I still see nothing when I paste the new layer in.
[Update a while later]
OK, finally figured it out. I had to “Select All” before copying.