Microrobots. That can team up to pull a car.
Vector Space Systems
Congratulations on a successful test fight in Mojave today. That’s pretty good progress for a year-old company. There’s going to be a shakeout in this market, but they seem to be real.
[Mid-afternoon update]
If this isn't the coolest damned angle for a rocket shot then I don't know what is. @vectorspacesys Vector-R B0.1 first launch today #space pic.twitter.com/rd3Tt33JH4
— Jim Cantrell (@jamesncantrell) May 3, 2017
I like how the shadow stays in the frame as the rocket disappears from it.
[Thursday-morning update]
Eric Berger has the story.
Calorie Counting
It’s junk science, and these menu rules based on it are insane, and probably impossible to follow.
In related news, studies showing the dangers of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils were apparently buried for a long time.
An Artificial Kidney
Available within two years? If so, this will save a lot of lives, and perhaps end the need for waiting for donors (which, unlike other organs, could be solved by simply letting the market work).
“The Check Didn’t Come”
A couple years ago, we had to evict a renter in Florida. She was a con artist, and it was a PITA, because she had a law degree.
Kevin Williamson has a sadder story about evictions, with broader societal connotations. It’s (as usual) a beautiful piece of writing.
LA Traffic
Elon’s tunnelling plan. Earthquakes will be a huge issue, I think.
The Nye Quadrant
An interesting discussion and link roundup from Judith Curry.
This Morning’s Launch And Landing
Because they didn’t show the second-stage burn for security purposes, SpaceX showed the entire descent sequence of the first stage for the first time, including the landing back at the Cape.
The Internet Of Things
Why you should buy the dumbest appliances you can find.
That’s always my philosophy. We’re planning to finally get a true “big screen” television (our current one, over a decade old, is 37 inch). I’d like to just buy a monitor, but they don’t seem to really make them. I am absolutely not going to buy a television that insists that I give it my wifi password.
That Time Of Year Again
It’s Victims Of Communism Day, 2017:
This year is a particularly important time to remember the victims of Communism because of the approaching one hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution – Bolshevik takeover of Russia. The Soviet Union was not the most oppressive communist regime. It probably did not match the even more thoroughgoing totalitarianism of the Khmer Rouge and North Korea. Nor did it kill the most people – a record held by Mao Zedong the Chinese communists. But the Soviet experiment was the principal model for all the later communist states, and it is hard to imagine communists seizing control of so much of the world without it. In addition to the significant material aid that the Soviets provided to communists in other nations, the communist seizure of power in Russia also greatly boosted the ideology’s prospects elsewhere.
Meanwhile…
Hearing that there are people in black clothes and masks in downtown LA protesting against fascism.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 1, 2017