No, Senator Whitehouse, it isn’t racketeering; it’s free speech.
Gun Control
No, Surgeon General, it is not a health issue.
The Senate should have just left the position empty.
The Bleed Hole In Aircraft Windows
Explained. Ideally, you’d have a similar setup for a spacecraft, but it would add weight. Lynx is single pane, AFAIK. I don’t know about SpaceShipTwo.
The Bergdahl Deal
The stink continues to grow.
As the professor says, it stunk from the get-go.
Kickstarter Tech Support
Rand Simberg
May 30, 4:46 PM
I tried to upload my video. It is an MP4, H.264, resolution 640×480, size of 23.5 Mb. When I upload, it says there is an “error,” but that’s the only information I get, so it’s hard to figure out what the problem is.
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Hi Rand,
Travis here with Kickstarter support—thanks for writing in. Sorry that you’re having trouble uploading your video.
Please double-check to make sure that your video meets these requirements:
Size: Project videos need to be 5GB or less. Video in updates can be up to 250MB.
File Format: We accept most major video formats but for best results upload one of our recommended file types: MOV, MP4 or WMV.
Tip: Converting your file into another file format may resolve playback issues.
Resolution: We take the video file you upload and create a 640×480 (4:3 ratio) version to display on your project page.
Compression: We accept most major video codecs, but for best results we recommend using WMV format in Windows and H.264 format on Mac. In both cases, the key variable is the “bit rate,” so look for that measurement. If it’s measured in kilobits per second (kbps), try 1500 to start. If it’s measured in megabits per second (Mbps), try 1.5. If the file is too big: Make that number smaller. If the quality seems bad: Make it bigger.
If all of this checks out and you’re still having trouble, please send me a screenshot or further details on what you’re seeing from your end. I hope this helps!
Best,
Travis
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This response is utterly useless. It contains no information that is not already on the web site (in fact, it looks like it was simply pasted from it). Did you even read what I wrote?
The Kids Aren’t All Right
Is technology ruining their social skills?
I never even attempt to socially interact via text. For me, texting is something I do rarely, and generally just as a means of requesting or conveying practical information (Where are you?). I’m glad I work at home, because I hate mobile phones for communication in general, whether talking or texting. I’ll often forget to take it with me (in fact I did just yesterday) when running errands. As I’ve often remarked, I don’t think most young people even know what good telephone service (or music reproduction) is like. They think the crap quality they get from cells is normal.
The point about the overuse of exclamation marks is also interesting. I had an email exchange a year or two ago with a twenty-something whose emails were full of them. I gave her some unsolicited advice to be more sparing with the bangs for professional communication, which she took well, but it’s a hard habit to break, I expect, and as the article notes, some people have grown to expect them.
And as a pre-warning to commenters: Get off my lawn. 🙂
The Fastest-Growing Group Of Gun Owners
In late 2012–immediately following the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School–there was greater support for gun control than for gun rights. In fact, there had been a greater support for gun control over gun rights for more than 20 years. And this held true through January 2013. Then things began to shift.
On parallel with growing female gun ownership, increasing numbers of women applying for concealed carry permits, and burgeoning women involvement in shooting sports, support for gun control has dwindled. Thus, whereas only “45 percent” of the American people supported gun rights in January 2013 while “51 percent” supported gun control, the numbers have now shifted to “52 percent” support for gun rights and only “46 percent” support for gun control.
Interestingly, the shift in women’s attitude in favor of guns has taken place during years when groups like Bloomberg-funded Moms Demand Action have worked their hardest to get moms to vote against the Second Amendment.
To paraphrase the old saying, God created men and women. Sam Colt made them equal.
The Clinton Foundation And Hillary
Yes, she’s very likely guilty of the bribery statutes.
But as Professor Foley notes, don’t expect Clinton-appointed prosecutors to do anything about it. We’re turning into a banana republic without the bananas.
[Sunday-morning update]
The Clintons’ favorite way of lying:
I need not dwell on the implausibility of roving bands of ninja-like naughty toddlers — or lone-wolf munchkins — breaking into nice homes to scribble on the upstairs walls and then depart leaving no other trace of their schemes. I simply bring this up to say that my daughter’s “a bad girl did it” gambit is a wildly more powerful and resolute claim of innocence than “you have no smoking gun.”
Yes. “You can’t prove it, copper” isn’t much of a defense in the face of the obvious, but the media continues to perversely admire them for how adroitly they can get away with corruption and lies. In a way, of course, they never would if the Clintons were Republicans.
[Bumped]
[Update a couple minutes later]
I should note, as a bonus, there is more disquisition on the merits of a President SMOD over a President Cthulthu at that last link. Including arguments over electability:
For starters, Cthulhu will never get the Evangelical vote. As a demonic beast who claims, if not sovereignty over, then at least co-equal status with the Almighty, Biblical conservatives will never pull a lever for some squid-faced Baal-wannabe. I can see Ralph Reed’s attack ads now.
Indeed.
My New Kickstarter
I’m having trouble uploading the video to the Kickstarter page (they’re figuring out what the problem is, hopefully), but meanwhile, here’s a higher-quality version of it on Youtube. I’m not thrilled with audio quality (it sounds sort of like I’m in an echoey lecture hall), but I don’t have a sound studio, just a Sennheiser headset.
[Update a few minutes later]
Oops. Just noticed, it looks like I lost the end credits. Have to look into what happened there.
[Update a while later]
For some reason, I hadn’t included the final credits in the build. Here’s the new version.
[Update a while later]
Sorry transitions are so choppy. I’m sure it has something to do with Youtube’s post-processing.
[Monday-morning update]
@moneyman10k SLS won't achieve Spruce Goose status until it flies at least once. @rocketrepreneur
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 31, 2015
Neil Stephenson
Discusses his new novel, and the role of science fiction.
He is one of the few authors whose books I always look forward to reading, though I was a little disappointed with Anathem. But this looks like a fun read.
I should also note that one of the points I make in my book (and in op-eds) since, is that our unwillingness to use the hardware we have on hand to get into space is an indicator of how utterly unimportant human spaceflight is (a point that is accentuated by the relatively poor sales of a well-reviewed book). Stephenson describes a scenario in which it suddenly becomes very important to become as spacefaring as possible, as soon as possible, and how society reacts.