What the hell have we been doing?

The contents of Mr. Rutan's speech may not accurately reflect the views of Liftport or the people who work there. On the other hand, it may.

A blog is never intended to be a place for position statements or to lay out policy, except where specifically noted. The flip-side of that is that our blog is a reflection of what Liftport is and stands for as a company, and who and what it's employes are and stand for.

....

Burt Rutan may be considered in some quarters to be wrong in the details of his speech - his achievements with SpaceShipOne merely duplicating what has already been done. Yet he's an American and entitled - expected - to speak his mind. When a guy who is that smart and has - really - done so many things in aerospace stands his ground and speaks his mind, what he says deserves more than a passing and dismisive glance.

Burt Rutan, speaking at the National Space Society’s 2005 conference.

Once commercial guys do this and they it for profit and once it is successful and profitable the whole picture changes. I'm convinced that investment will no longer be a problem if we do our job right. And that is to go out and do the right things to solve the safety problems and start flying a lot of people.

and

The SR-71 and Concorde] went all the way through their life cycle until they got too rusty to maintain, and got shut down and we retreated back to the same performance, military and commercial, that we had in 1960. Guys, that was 45 years ago. Now go back from 1960, 45 years earlier when airplanes were biplanes with fabric wings and wooden propellers. What the hell have we been doing?

What do you think?


Respectfully Submitted,
Brian Dunbar

Orbital debris solution

It's late and the line between good and bad ideas will blur ..

The question is "How can orbital debris be required by international law to de-orbit or move to a graveyard orbit?"

My first thought is to question the assumption of requiring international law to do anything.

The root problem is debris. It's in the way, a hazard. It needs to be minimized or eliminated.

Solution - provide incentives to the owners and operators to do so.

International law is one avenue and it should be pursued.

Another incentive would be for the operators of launch systems to offer discounts to satellite operators who demonstrate they practice debris minimization. They suffer a small profit loss in return for the assurance that the satellite won't cause problems for them later. Enlightened self-interest anyone?

Jasper - your satellite has no delta-v budget. If the launch provider offered to cut your launch cost by 20%, would your program find the budget then? How much would it take? We might make an exception for universities.

Note I am not speaking of a cartel or any action that would be construed as a restraint of trade - merely a basic self-serving convention. The satelllite owners could turn it around as well, arbitrte between launch services.

The question is am I off-base thinking that a launch operator who has a vested interest in reducing orbital debris can use the market to make that happen?

Zombies - Sandra Bullock

From archenemy blog

The proper name of the movie is “28 Days Later”. I’m not trying to be a prick, I just don’t want anyone to rent “28 Days” thinking there is zombies in it. “28 Days” is a Sandra Bullock movie where “A big-city newspaper columnist is forced to enter a drug and alcohol rehab center after stealing a limousine and crashing it into a house.” Man, sounds like some zombies would have really improved that flick.

A statement that can be applied to almost all movies starring Ms. Bullock.

znitch

test of znitch

xxtestxx

Zhen He

Nick Szabo writes about the Zheng He fleets.  Fascinating stuff. Impressive ships for the era . . .

Two contemporary ships - Santa Maria and a Zheng He treasure ship.

The parallels between the Zheng He treasure fleets vs contemporary Portugese commercial ventures and Apollo (and Shuttle and ISS ..) and efforts like Virgin Galacitc and SpaceX are obvious and Nick does a better job at that than I can.

IZheng He (Qeng Ho) serves as the namesake for the 'good guys' in one of my favorite novels 'A Deepness in the Sky'.

Ben Stein - You Can Complain, or You Can Make Money

Sound advice from Mr. Stein.

Just to give you an idea of current inequality, statistically speaking, the top 1 percent of all income earners in this great land earn roughly 20 percent of the total income. The top 1 percent of wealth holders have close to one-third of all wealth. The top 5 percent of wealth holders have very roughly 50 percent of all wealth in this country.

As you can see, that does not leave a lot for everyone else.

There are a number of ways to respond to this situation. You can become indignant and say that it’s a violation of American democratic principles. This is a good way to put yourself into a sanctimonious mood, and it offers some psychic satisfaction.

Another way, possibly more satisfying in the long run, would be to ask yourself how the top 1 percent of wealth holders and income earners got to be that way, and then to try to do it yourself. My own observation, having been both a critic and a moderately well-paid person, is that while it’s nice to be a critic, it’s also nice to have your own swimming pool. (The best is both, but that’s another story.)

Worth a read.

Consultant

Frequently you'll hear consultants referred to as consulticks. For good reason; sure they can provide a valuable service but there are numerous exceptions where the organization finds itself being sold a white elephant.

Jeff Harrell found a consultant who might or might not be a Liar McLiar - at any rate he seems to be talking out of his rear end regarding a Mac he purchased.

This article smells as fishy as last week’s halibut. Let’s start at the top. Bodine describes his Mac as a “Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz computer.” He then says that he paid $4,552.71 for it “on May 21, 2006.”

Go read - it won't take long and Harrell is always a good read.

Harrell focused on the inconsistencies (and isn't liar such an ugly word).  I found my own problems. with Bodine's account.

The signs of doom were there on day one, but I ignored them. I pretended that I liked the one button mouse.

Any mouse with the right plug works. I like my Logitech mouse just fine. Has a nifty scroll wheel and everything.

Doing a simple screen capture was an immense chore. On a PC you just press Alt and tap PrtScr. With the Mac I had to download and launch special programs to accomplish this simple task.

Or look in Utilities and lauch Grab. There is also a key combination that does this but I'd have to look that up.

I didn't even bother with the Mac's iCal or Mail, which required me to buy an @mac.com address

I've never had a @mac.com address and have been using iCal since day one, and Mail for a variety of accounts.

For me the killer was the Web browser. Safari simply cannot read Flash. It is, quite simply, a second-rate browser.

Hunh. I don't think I've had to do anything special to make Flash read in Safari - it just worked.

Now, yes, some of the above problems you'd have to know about or do a Google search to know about.

I realized it was time to unload the silvery box of frustration when I had to buy a "Dummies" book on how to operate it

Or buy a Dummies book and read it. Bodine might be smart as hell about marketing but I hope his clients - or the readers of Legal Technology - don't listen to him for computer advice.

Compare and Contrast

These things fall into your lap from time to time. A top ten list you nod at and say 'um-hmm' and then a few minutes later a similar list from across the aisle. One is a guide to life, the other an attempt to define an ideology.

From Francic Porretto - The Commandments Of Beneficial Conservatism

1. No one is as smart or knowledgeable as he needs to be.
2. That goes for you too, hero, so show a little respect.
3. Other people are not mere means to your ends.
4. Other people's opinions and tastes do not require your approval.
5. No one owes you one damned thing just because you're alive; the converse is also true.
6. Things are the way they are for a reason. You're expected to learn the reason before you open your yap to complain about them.
7. If the reason is still sound, don't monkey with the works.
8. If the reason has become unsound, or has been superseded by developments, it's still wise to make changes slowly, and with full attention to the consequences.
9. Many things, once done, cannot be undone. About these, be supremely cautious.
10. Admit your mistakes and make good on them; to do less is to be less than a man.

From Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, iauthor of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime" - What it means to be a liberal.

1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others.
2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference.
3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate.
4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind.
5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual.
6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate.
7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith.
8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties
9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible.
10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values.

A Scott Miller lyric resource

Google 'highland county boy' and this post is the first result.

Excellent. My blog is an ad-hoc lyric resource for a Scott Miller song.

You're welcome, Scott.

Where in the world

Robots - engineers - high-speed low-drag technology that (might) change the world.

It's all going to be at the Seattle Robotics Society meeting on October 21. Be there or be square.

Ceres

Water rights determined settlement patterns in what is now the American Southwest. The same thing could happen in the Belt.

Despite lacking known metallic resources that would make it attractive towards future space corporations, Ceres does have one element that would make this asteroid worth its weight in gold--water. Scientists believe that Ceres could contain up to 200 million cubic kilometers of fresh water--about five times as much as planet Earth.

Beats having to ship rations from earth. I am not, however, completly convinced that Ceres will automatically dominate the belt.

With the heart of the asteroid belt located around 2.7 AU (astronomical unit), Ceres lies in perfect position to supply future colonists with the necessary food supplies, as its orbit ranges between 2.55 and 2.98 AU. As the asteroid king makes its journey around the sun, mining colonies could be easily resupplied with food grown on the rocky world, enabling permanent outposts to focus on extracting minerals and precious metals.

A mining camp, sure.  People who go to settle might prefer to have a local source of food.

Fighting Back

Dr. Helen quotes J. Reid Meloy who writes in Violence Risk and Threat Assessment

I have worked several mass murder cases during both criminal and civil suits, and I have discovered something that has important implications for survival: the people who live through these horrible events are active and aggressive. They either run out of the building, or if cornered, they aggress against the perpretrator, and then run. People who are killed do not run or hide effectively: they usually choose obvious hiding places, like under a desk or table. As a psychologist, this behavior appears to be acutely regressive-like the child who hides in an obvious place, believing that if he closes his eyes and cannot see, he won't be seen.

A reasonably intelligent person might conclude it's better to stand and fight than to die on your knees (or cowering under a desk).  The topic of discussion on her post is  that the Burleson ISD is teaching their kids to fight back.

It seems like a simple enough equation; Black Hat walks into a room with a gun in his hand and murder on his mind. He will find you under the desk (as Meloy points out it's an obvious hiding place). And once he does you're dead. You're trapped and it's a piss-poor place to defend yourself - you're on the ground, curled up.

Confront the Black Hat and you might live. Certain death or a chance at life?
...

During boot camp the Sergeant Major was held up as an example of What to Do. In Vietnam during a close ambush his squad did the correct thing - turned and charged the enemy. This is the hardest thing to do - you're taking fire it's natural to seek cover to find a hole in the ground.

The thing is if you are on the receiving end of a close-ambush there is no cover, there is no safe place - you're on killing ground chosen with care and attention to detail. There is no safe place - you're seconds from dying if you hesitate. The only safe place is to run - charge - the enemy.

If you stay you will die. If you charge the enemy position you may die; you may also live.

The Sergeant Major's squad charged, to a man. Eleven of them died, on the killing zone or defeating the enemy with 'fire and close combat'. The twelfth man - who two decades later was Sergeant Major of MCRD San Diego - lived.
...

There was a video shown to me long long ago in a nearly forgotten course on counter-terrorism. Still B+W pictures, taken every half-second. Taken during a bank robbery; robber has a gun. Off duty cop twelve feet away draws his a pistol from an ankle holster and it fails. Robber turns to shoot the cop. Cop leaps up from a crouch, hurls himself at robber. Robber gets of three shots at the cop. None landed. Cop body slammed the robber, smashed him into the ground and kept pounding until the robber was out of commission.

Had the man frozen in place he would have been murdered. And many others. He acted with alacrity and lived.
...

Act quickly and you may live. I don't say this is easy and I don't truly know that I'd have the guts to act quickly and correctly. I am a bit of a klutz and I am not a brawler or physical possessing.

More - these are kids.  Not Marines or cops or even adults who should know enough to fight back. Would I want my child to learn how to fight back?

Yes. They're children. Innocent and all that jazz. But the minute a madman stalks into their classroom, hunting them, or a looney tries to grab them off the sidewalk, if they survive they're no longer innocent. I'd rather my kids have memories of fighting back and not hiding from a monster come-to-life.

Which is a horrible thing to contemplate. I'm off to read a bedtime story now. Something with fuzzy lions and cute bunnies for a choice.

Dr. Helen via TJIC.

Optimism: it’s not for the weak

Lileks - he shoots .. he scores!

From Fark, a piece on what the Earth would look like without humans. Maybe it’s me, but it can’t quite keep the wistful tone from showing through; it has more admiration for Earth’s self-healing properties than for mankind’s accomplishments. The Fark comments were just what I expected – flamers dumping on the “eco-tards,” bitter little pills who hate people and wish them gone so Gaia can breathe free, witty snipers, believers who posit a higher purpose, cynics who think they can shatter deeply-held religious convictions with a deft analogy. The usual. This entry stuck out:

The truly hilarious thing in this thread is that those offended by the article actually imagine that they (or the human race in general) are important or worthwhile or are more deserving of existence on Earth than a Grizzly Bear or a mosquito or a Blue-Footed Booby. What a howler.

Guess what? You're wrong.

God didn't create the Earth for you. You aren't superior to, or even more interesting than, any other life form. You have no more value or worth than anything else, but you do have gigantic egos and a twisted perspective.

When you die or Homo sapiens goes extinct, it won't mean anything and will have no more cosmic significance than the extinction of the Dodo Bird. In fact, the persons who are offended by this article are the least rational among us, and therefore the most animalistic, the most degraded, and the least "superior" to other life forms. Ooga Booga!

What irony! Did you know that you're walking cartoons?

Hahahahahah!

A nest of maggot larvae, a newborn ward at a hospital: ten French chefs say No Difference. Dude’s hard core! But so is Lewis Black, a comic I’ve heard here and there. Funny guy. Shouts a lot. Got that angry man thing going for him. This web ad pops up on some sites I visit:

Yes, that’s us, all right; living in a society which represents the pinnacle of freedom and comfort in the history of the species, and we’re SCREWED, and only the idiots think we aren’t. Of course we’re screwed, inasmuch as the grave yawns in front of us all, but in time, in time. “Red White and Screwed,” however, suggests that Americans are really truly screwed, and I can hear the crowd whooping and wooing in agreement. Perhaps there’s a moment in his speech where he notes that it could be worse than being an American; you could be a Falun Gong believer getting a truncheon in the face in a Chinese jail, or a Saudi woman with an off-the-charts IQ sitting in a windowless room unable to go outside until the resident penis comes home, but I suspect that Mr. Black views everything as Pretty Much Screwed, with America uniquely screwed in ways that make him shout truth to power.

You can tell by the ad – it’s been cleverly defaced to suggest you should buy an SUV. An SUV! Moloch’s Chariot! The Sled of Baal! The vehicle no one wanted until ad campaigns reprogrammed your brain, and now gas is three dollars and you’re SCREWED! Well, it’s down to $2.15, but only because it’s being manipulated, which is more proof you’re SCREWED! 

Eh.

Optimism: it’s not for the weak.

Life - talk to me about life

Genius - the man is a fricking genius.



It's like he's peering over my shoulder, taking notes. Except he's not, this is just life.

Terrifying.

Beautiful.

A Perspective on the Controversy Concerning Liftport's Space Elevator Roadmap by Bryan Laubscher

Linked without comment - A Perspective on the Controversy Concerning Liftport's Space Elevator Roadmap by Bryan Laubscher.

The current controversy over Liftport’s release of a roadmap for the Space Elevator is important because it is allowing for a larger set of issues to be considered. In my opinion, the root of the action by Liftport and the contention to the release of its roadmap point to what is missing in the Space Elevator community.

Because we are in the “infancy” of the Space Elevator, it is not clear what it will grow into in its maturity. Therefore, we have a broad range of work that is valid, ranging from speculative visions to detailed scientific and engineering research. Unfortunately, not all of it is of high quality nor does all of it further the Space Elevator. In short, we have exuberant individuals and small teams working independently and in concert, some for the positive and some for the negative! There has been no oversight, criticism or acclimation of effort, no matter how well carried out or how shabbily executed. This must change!

As a community we need to work more closely together to encourage and support good work while discouraging shoddy work. And we need to do this out of the public eye. All of us need to be willing to have our work reviewed. Indeed, my most talented scientific colleagues insist on having their work reviewed by peers because they know the importance of their work and they honor their reputations! This level of activity is for adults with serious intentions. It is not for the insincere or insecure. Through this process we will all be called to a higher standard of work.

Moreover, the release by Liftport of a roadmap, does an important service by, in fact, pointing toward the need for a roadmap for the Space Elevator effort. I am taking a stand that a roadmap must be generated by the community, be of appropriate depth and call out milestones. In this way, our now separate efforts can be focused to produce a greater, cumulative effect. This will not be easy or without dissent, but it is important and necessary.

I call upon the Space Elevator community to attend the 2nd Biennial Space Elevator Workshop (which is a part of the Space Exploration 2007 Conference sesinstitute.org). If the community responds, we will set aside an afternoon to have first a structured discussion and then a more free-ranging session concerning a roadmap outline. We must quickly and efficiently determine the intent, timescale, scope and depth of the document. Then we can select the major milestones and finally elect a small group to draft a first draft for posting on spaceelevator.com for review.

In the meantime and as preparation for the workshop, I call upon every space elevator group to discuss the roadmap concept and to distill the most important milestones they see as necessary for Space Elevator development. As a guide, I refer everyone to NASA’s roadmaps a few examples of which are:

* Astrobiology Roadmap
* Exploration of Neighboring Planetary System
* NASA Origins Map

These are available on line and usually are the result of a process in which the interested scientific and engineering community was heavily involved in the development of the roadmap.

When you come to the workshop, be prepared to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

SmartFlix

I know this guy - but only by his blog so I don't know if that counts as 'friend' or not. His blog persona certainly seems like the kind of guy I'd count as friend, and it's seemingly not too far from who he really is.

At any rate. I know this guy, he's got a kick-ass company called SmartFlix. They rent how-to videos. Like NetFlix but with content you can use and enjoy.

Start a company, make a few billion and have a grand time - the American Way.

Things I knew but had forgotten I had known.

I knew this once but had forgotten.  Then I read  Dr. Edwards bit about space elevator lifters

To reduce the mass of the systems, advanced materials (composites) are needed in all structural components.

And recalled the MiG-25 Foxbat.  Built to counter a high-altitude bomber that never made it into production it was rumored to be one hell-on-wheels wonder machine.

Then Viktor Belenko flew his MiG-25 to Japan in 1976, and defected. The USAF got to dismantle the bird (before returning it in thirty crates - take that KGB) and found that

• Welding was done by hand and construction was relatively crude. As in many Soviet aircraft, rivet heads were left exposed in areas that would not adversely affect aerodynamic drag.

• The aircraft was built of a nickel-steel alloy, and not titanium as was assumed (though some titanium was used in heat-critical areas). The steel construction contributed to the craft's massive 64,000 lb (29 ton) unarmed weight.

• The majority of the on-board avionics were based on vacuum tube technology, not solid-state electronics. Seemingly obsolete, the use of vacuum tubes was ingenious because they were far less susceptible to EMP in case of nuclear warfare and were more tolerant of temperature extremes, removing the need for complex environmental control inside the avionics bays. In addition, the vacuum tubes were easy to replace in remote northern airfields where sophisticated transistor parts may not have been readily available. As with all Soviet aircraft, the MiG-25 was designed to be as rugged as possible.

The MiG-25 was built 'good enough' for it's mission and environment; to fly high, fast and shoot missiles at enemy bombers and serviced by poorly trained conscripts.

The point? I am no engineer but it seems likely to me that the people that do build space elevator lifters might do well to take a page from the Russian design book and go cheap but sturdy where possible. If a surface is not going to be exposed to airflow - why not use exposed rivet heads? If steel works and is cheaper than the alternative - why not use it?

Yes, mass matters but it's not nearly as critical as a high-performance interceptor or a rocket. Lifters will after all leave their motor and fuel on the ground. Any minor weight penalties will incur against the profit margin (less cargo capacity) and not performance.

It seems like an area where 'good enough' will work.

                                  

Bias

Bias prohibits me from block-quoting any of Tom's post,' Reply to Edwards’ Comments on the Roadmap', which is a reply to Dr. Edwards post 'Analysis of Liftport's Space Elevator Roadmap'.

Bias?  Yes - I think it's good and merits reading.  Bblock-quoting forces you, constant reader, to consider what I think most imortant. I'd rather you approach the post with as few preconceptions as possible.

It's also - I think - a good template to follow for situations like these.

Quote of the Day

I don't do 'Quote of the Day' but I'll happily point out good examples when I see them. Like this

It stands to reason that self-righteous, inflexible, single-minded, authoritarian true believers are politically organized. Open-minded, flexible, complex, ambiguous, anti-authoritarian people would just as soon be left to mind their own fucking business.

R.U. Sirius
In How To Mutate and Take Over The World
[From a conversation and followup email from Kevin at The Smallest Minority.--Joe]

Ya - that's pretty good.

New Gear

Work was kind enough to buy me one of these.

Setup was easy - booted the old G4 PowerBook into Firewire target disk mode at the right time, and forty minutes later (give or take - I wasn't timing it) all of my old files were on the new disk. All of my old setup information came across as well. Reinstalled Firefox - there was my history and bookmarks. Reinstalled Thunderbird - hey look, my email. And so on.

I'm not an old Mac user - the G4 was my first. I'm not religous about using OS X - I simply like an operating system that will allow me to play system administrator but will otherwise get out of my way. This OS X does very very well.

BSG Filk

Scifi does .. filk?

A New Crew In Town

"I like your bluish glow and your drunk XO .."

seven years progressive experience with Whompfoozle 3.9

If you've ever looked for a job in the technical field you've seen help wanted ads that read

... candiate must have seven years progressive experience with Whompfoozle Version 3.9 ...

when Whompfoozle 3.9 was released six months ago, and didn't exist two years before that.


Reading Dr. Bradley Edwards criticism of Liftport's Roadmap reminded me of that.

The team that compiled this roadmap consisted of: Michael Laine who has no technical background, Tom Nugent is a recent graduate with limited experience on the space elevator, and two student interns at Liftport.

Right. Michael is the business guy - you need one of those if you're going to actually build something. But it struck me as unfair to expect Tom to have real-world experience with a system that is so far, really, a bunch of paper studies and thought experiments.

Which leaves aside the inconvenient fact that Tom isn't a recent graduate and negates the work he's done at MIT, JAXA and so on

What - the interns? They're bright, and they work cheap. This is a virtue when you're running a business.

This post is a personal opinion of Brian Dunbar and does not reflect the views or opinions of his employer.

Meaningful Work or Death

Because of the Roadmap, I just rewrote the 'Why the Countdown'

Why October 27, 2031?
In October 2006, Liftport released the first comprehensive analysis of the steps needed to design, manufacture and deploy a space elevator.   The results of this study pushed the former date, April 12, 2018, back a few years.

And I wanted to howl about how unfair it all is. 2031?  I'll be an old man of 61. My youth! My faded beauty!

Then I realized I was being silly, settled down and published the page. Got back to work in other words. This is what happens with complicated projects that are being run well; you adjust to reality and don't demand that reality adjust to your deadline.

In the end, we're better for it. We've got a solid grasp of the broad outlines of what needs to be done. It's going to take longer - and we always knew it might - but in a perverse way we're in a better position to say we can (probably) do this thing.

I am taking odd pleasure in this quote from Hugh MacLeod - Meaningful Work or Death. Any other form of existence doesn’t interest me.

Amen.

Roadmap

Now Liftport isn't just a bunch of guys from the unfashionable part of Seattle with PowerPoint slides. Now we've got GANNT charts.

Space Elevator Roadmap Version 1.0 Public Beta

Liftport Group is happy to announce that we have (some might say at long last) produced a draft roadmap for space elevator development.

In conjunction with the Roadmap and to help foster an open approach to space elevator development, Liftport Group is also offering the LiftPort Space Elevator Questions Database (i.e Questions Database).


The product of a determined effort by our staff and interns over a busy summer, the Roadmap provides the most realistic timetable yet for the development, deployment and operation of our proposed space elevator.

The Questions Database is intended to be a public repository for research and design questions related to the development of the space elevator.

Questions is still under development, and is only the latest tool we're using to involve the public.  We encourage people from all walks of life and all over the world to become involved with space elevator research and advocacy.


Tom Nugent's blog post is here.

The Roadmap is available here.

A graphic (not to scale) suitable for your desktop is here.

A graphic (not to scale) suitable for printing is here.

LiftPort Space Elevator Questions Database (LPQDB) is available here ,

Kidding aside the links above represent a great deal of hard work by the guys at the home office and the interns we had over the summer. And this is - no puffery intended - the best attempt to date for a realistic schedule for deployment, development and operation of the space elevator.

Seasons

Mike the Marine laments his youth

Man, I hated the "digital" uniforms when they first came out. I thought they looked stupid. And initially they WERE stupid. The original concept included things like zip-off SLEEVES. Does that seem smart to ANYONE? "Sorry Gunny. I can't go war… I lost all my left arms in a tragic laundry day mix-up."

But they grew on me. I mean hey, wash and wear, baby! Nowadays you don't iron your cammies, you don't polish your boots, and all your brass is anodized. What the hell to the D.I.s do to screw with the recruits anymore? No starch. No Kiwi. No Brasso. Em-Nu stock has plummeted… hell, do they even MAKE Em-Nu anymore?

I'm not even supposed to buy black socks from here on out. Now they're all "coyote" brown. Apparently "sand" wasn't as cool a name for brown as "coyote" was... but I'm stuck with green t-shirts which look downright silly behind desert cammies...

For everything there is a season; farewell woodland pattern.

The only thing that remains the same is the spirit of the Marine.

That is a lot of hops

\Homer Simpson\ Oh sweet mother of God no!

YAKIMA, Washington (AP) -- Federal investigators were set Tuesday to begin an investigation into a fire that ruined about 4 percent of America's yield of hops, used as flavoring in the brewing of beer and ale.

Via.

Flinger

You can't shake a stick without hitting new ideas for space launch.

An enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space, or perhaps weapons around the world, suggest the findings of a new study funded by the US air force.

A ring?

Previous studies have investigated the use of magnets to accelerate satellites to the high speeds required for launch. But most have focused on straight tracks, which have to gather speed in one quick burst. Supplying the huge spike of energy needed for this method has proven difficult.

The advantage of a circular track is that the satellite can be gradually accelerated over a period of several hours. And the setup is technologically feasible and cost effective, suggests a recent, preliminary study of the idea funded by the air force's Office of Scientific Research.

But it's not for people

Anything launched in this way would have to be able to survive enormous accelerations – more than 2000 times the acceleration due to gravity (2000g). This would seem to be an obstacle for launching things like communications satellites, but Fiske points out that the US military uses electronics in laser-guided artillery, which survive being fired out of guns at up to 20,000g.

They do indeed. Artillery shells are mass-produced which brings the cost down a bit.

I'm not knocking the idea - if it works, great. A mature transportation system has room in it for all kinds of ways to get to orbit. Rocket planes for a sub-ortibal hop, launch rings for stuff that stand 2000 Gs (wow) and, perhaps, space elevators.

There are problems - aren't there always?

Although Epstein is sceptical about the prospects for such a ring, he cautions that if built, the ring itself could become a target for attacks. This is because of its potential for use as a weapon, launching missiles that could reach anywhere in the world. "The ring then becomes one of the most important targets on the planet," he told New Scientist.

I've heard that one before

.

You can almost hear the 'whoosh'

Discworld Cake

Behold! The Discworld Cake.

It's cool. I wonder if she can do a Ringworld?

Via.

Conspiracy Snark: 9/11 Edition

Why the "9/11 Truth" movement makes the "Left Behind" sci-fi series read like Shakespeare
by Matt Tabbi

snip
CHENEY: Well, we need to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. So what we've decided to do is crash a whole bunch of remote-controlled planes into Wall Street and the Pentagon, say they're real hijacked commercial planes, and blame it on the towelheads; then we'll just blow up the buildings ourselves to make sure they actually fall down.

RUMSFELD: Right! And we'll make sure that some of the hijackers are agents of Saddam Hussein! That way we'll have no problem getting the public to buy the invasion.

CHENEY: No, Dick, we won't.

RUMSFELD: We won't?

CHENEY: No, that's too obvious. We'll make the hijackers Al Qaeda and then just imply a connection to Iraq.

RUMSFELD: But if we're just making up the whole thing, why not just put Saddam's fingerprints on the attack?

CHENEY: (sighing) It just has to be this way, Dick. Ups the ante, as it were. This way, we're not insulated if things go wrong in Iraq. Gives us incentive to get the invasion right the first time around.

BUSH: I'm a total idiot who can barely read, so I'll buy that. But I've got a question. Why do we need to crash planes into the Towers at all? Since everyone knows terrorists already tried to blow up that building complex from the ground up once, why don't we just blow it up like we plan to anyway, and blame the bombs on the terrorists?

RUMSFELD: Mr. President, you don't understand. It's much better to sneak into the buildings ourselves in the days before the attacks, plant the bombs and then make it look like it was exploding planes that brought the buildings down. That way, we involve more people in the plot, stand a much greater chance of being exposed and needlessly complicate everything!

snip

Worth the read

Home Schooling

There is this much about home schooling

A gunman killed six people at a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday morning in Pennsylvania's bucolic Lancaster County, and several others were taken to hospitals with injuries, authorities said.

I doubt like hell a wack job will walk into my house and execute my children. It's not why we home school (okay 'public charter school distance education'), more of a unanticipated benefit.

Don't hide your light under a bushel basket

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela

Anousheh goes on to write

But this is no longer only my Quest. It is the duty of every one of you to go beyond just reading and writing on the Space Blog. It is your duty to make sure this excitement, this wave, this wonderful force that has awakened the best in us continues on.

I don’t like to be idealized or become an icon. I’m not special, I just found that light inside me that you all have and got my strength from it. It seems like I found the key to open up your hearts and souls so now you can reach inside and gain strength from there.

Now that we are here, let’s all be equal in this Quest and share the responsibility of saving our world. It is too much for one person but when it is up to all of us, I know we can do it

Via.

From the mailbag

I do get the oddest mail. But I'm not posting it on advice from my better-half. "Be kind" she said.

I'm a better person because she's in my life. But o' Lord it was so hard to hit the 'Clear Content' button.

When Dreamers Dream

This was made as part of the course material Liftport is developing for middle and high school students.

When Dreamers Dream

SpaceShipOne

It is not that I am such a good writer, but I simply can't come up with anything better than what I've already written.
...

One year ago today, Mike Melvill - an “ordinary guy who flies around the Mojave Airport for a living” flew SpaceShipOne to space, and back.

Twenty seven thousand people travelled to the Mojave to watch. Tens of millions saw the event live on television or broadcast on the internet. There is your interest in space - in the millions of people who voted with their feet and their time. Who demonstrated without recourse to punditry, experts or politicians where they want their future to lie

.

‘The Crowd’ by Richard Seaman

Tip to Anousheh Ansari's blog for reminding me of the date.

You are a special and unique snowflake

A contest? I love a contest. Especially one a no-talent hack like me can enter with ease.

Retroblast is having a contest: create a motivational poster based on a video game or pinball machine.

Here is mine



Via defective yeti and Tom.

Breaking the law

Presented without comment, from Oliver North.

Ordering the assassination of a foreign national is arguably more important than lying about a tryst with an intern in the Oval Office. So where is the "shock and awe" from human rights standard bearers who still complain about the so-called abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay? Do they not care that Clinton ordered an assassination?

Speak softly and carry a big stick

Hunh. The market is getting upset at Venezuela.

The big blow came Wednesday when 7-Eleven announced it would not renew a 20-year contract with Venezuelan-owned gas supplier Citgo. Instead, it would start selling its own brand, to be supplied by three U.S. oil firms.

7-Eleven admitted Chavez was a public relations disaster for the firm after his United Nations speech, denouncing President Bush as "the devil," and affected its decision.

"Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president," said a 7-Eleven spokeswoman, who'd obviously been hearing from the public. "Chavez's position and statements over the past year or so didn't tempt us to stay with Citgo."

How bad could it be?

That's about 2,100 gas stations off the books for Citgo, cutting total outlets to 11,000.

That does look pretty bad.  No wait - it gets worse

What Caracas is staring at, dumbfounded, is the realization that Americans can use their formidable buying power to tell Chavez something he cynically thought he'd never hear: that his oil was not all that necessary.

That's bound to send a strong message to Caracas because Venezuela needs the $4 billion in U.S. yearly oil revenue to stay afloat and continue to throw its weight around on the world stage.

$4 billion buys a lot of hamburger in a place where your national expenditure for 2005 (estimated) is $41.27 billion.

Beamed Power Team Needs Help

One of the teams in the Beamed Power Climber Competition needs help

I am the captain of a team entered into the Beamed Power Climber Competition to be held at the Las Cruces Airport in Oct. I need 15 people to help aim mirrors for the competition. This is during and the week before the X-Prize cup.

This will be an exciting activity and volunteers will get free passes and a lousy tee-shirt.

I am looking for people who are not already on one of the other teams but have an interest in helping out.

Let me know if you are interested.

Brian Turner
816-746-5937

Fame fortune and a t-shirt are yours for the taking.

It's blue. Cosmic blue.

This is pretty nifty.  Think my neighbors would mind if I got a smaller one for my house?

M-INT Kobe, a commercial complex scheduled to open in Kobe on October 4, has been outfitted with an exterior lighting system that translates cosmic energy waves into pulsating blue light. The system is the first of its kind to be installed on a building in Japan.

Called “Super Nova,” the lighting system consists of 2,880 blue LEDs arranged in two columns spanning the height of the 18-story building’s west wall. The embedded lights are activated by sensors that detect cosmic rays. According to Takuro Osaka, the University of Tsukuba Graduate School professor who designed the system, the brightness of the blue lights fluctuates according to the intensity of the detected cosmic rays, giving the building an ever-changing magical glow.

Via.

Funny

I'm sure this has been said before about other pols . . .

They were talking about electronic voting machines and how they make it easy to steal elections (an assessment that I don’t disagree with).

But then someone called in to talk about how the Republicans have been stealing elections for the last two years.

And I’m really PISSED.

Not that he believed that nonsense.

But that I have to put up with Jim Doyle, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.

After all, if the Republicans have gotten so good at stealing elections I want them to start stealing a couple here in Wisconsin.

Wealth

Just saying ...



Need I say that I'm talking about wealth in this sense of the word?

Mark's post here.

Graphic courtesy Parody Motivator Generator from the fine folks at Despair, Inc.

Things I Did Not Know

Utah War

The Utah War was a 19th century armed conflict between Mormon settlers in Utah Territory and the United States federal government. From 1857 to 1858, the settlers and the government battled for hegemony over the culture and government of the territory. One famous incident during the ordeal was the Mountain Meadows massacre.

SF warship design snark

From Lileks

This was always a cool ship, but in retrospect that whole sticking-their-neck-out design had its flaws; how many Klingon captains tired of hearing his first officer shout “They’re targeting the narrow walkway back to the rest of the ship!” Aw sweet smokin' Kahliss, again? Fine. Target the thin vulnerable struts supporting their indispensible propulsion system, and let's get this $&#@ over with.

Sixteen Volts Epitaph

Sixteen Volts Epitaph

A reader asked me not to delete this blog so that some spammer wouldn't
grab it. So I will leave this post as the tombstone for this ugly
little blog that brought out the vilest in me and has now left me in
deep shame for the rest of my life. Always remember this, kids: you may
not really be as witty and edgy as you think you are, the Internet
amplifies everything, especially your most ridiculous stupidity, limits
usually exist for a good reason, and regardless of their labels, all
people are individuals with feelings, fears and hopes that you should
respect.

Susanna Hoffs - All I Want

Susanna Hoffs - All I Want
Susanna Hoffs - All I Want (live)

I am biased - I like the 'live' version.

Gloom Brigade

David Friedman observes

As the Chinese get richer they, naturally enough, want more stuff—consume more raw materials, oil, power. Voila—new worries for those who are afraid we are about to run out of everything, either just before or just after we roast or drown. I have not yet heard any of them wishing aloud that the Chinese and Indians would go back to poverty and starvation, but that seems at least a muted subtext to the complaints.

Some of the concern may be legitimate, although it requires a serious effort to see the problems of too much food as comparable to those of too little. More can be attributed to ideological hostility to capitalism—people unwilling to recognize its striking success in dealing with old problems and so eager to focus on new problems created by that success.

And some is just the human taste for gloom.

Intelligent Vandals

Intelligent vandalism.




Via.

New Blogger

My wife is blogging. Yay Pasty!

Coal Mines

Submitted without comment.



Hugh's post here, context here.

Good News at Home

Part One

Good news, everyone! The American economy seems to be doing pretty darn good.

The American people do not appear to appreciate the fact that their economy is, quite literally, in a class by itself. In an earlier post entitled "Americans Hate their Fabulous Economy," I tried to make that clear by comparing the recent Bush years to the preceding Clinton years in terms of their economic performance. I did not seek out obscure and esoteric economic indicators that could be used to mislead people into thinking that their hopelessly anemic economy is actually in great shape. Instead, I analyzed the basic economic indicators that have been used to gauge the health of any economy for decades. Those indicators reveal that America's economy during the Clinton and Bush years can only be described as fabulous -- and almost equally so -- in both cases.

Engram links many many charts from Per captita GDP, productivity and so on, with data from places like OECD.  He concludes with a thought that Ben might have asked

Oh, and one last thought: if you are a determined pessimist, I know exactly what you are thinking. You are thinking this:

OK, fine. The American economy is booming. Big deal. Only the rich are benefiting. What about the average guy? And what about the poor? Everything is getting worse for them. They'd be way better off in Europe. Right?

He answered that here

Today, I'm only going to show you one simple chart. This differs from my usual tactic, which is to badger you into submission with one informative chart after another. But today's chart is an especially important one because I believe contains what you mainly need to know in order to understand how the benefits of our relentlessly expanding economy are distributed across the population (from rich to poor). Jump to the end of this post if you trust that I did my homework and you only want to see the take-home story. But read on if you'd like to know about my difficult quest to obtain the relevant information.



All of these measures are relative to the U.S. median DPI (which is set to 100). Memorize this chart. It's what you need to know. As Tom Worstall noted, those in the lowest 10% here have about the same disposable income as those in the lowest 10% in Europe. It's almost an exact tie. At the other end of the scale, the highest 10% here have much higher disposable incomes than the highest 10% over there. Are only the rich making off like bandits? Well, look at the middle guy (i.e., look at the median). The European in the middle makes only about 73% of what the American in the middle makes.

And there you have it. That's how America's fabulous economy distributes its benefits across the economic spectrum (relative to other nations). Those at the bottom of our economic ladder are similar to those at the bottom of other industrialized nations. One would imagine that, in all of these nations, the government tries to ensure that the basic needs of the poor are satisfied (e.g., adequate food, uncrowded living conditions, plumbing, electricity, etc.) without going much further than that. But as you start moving up the economic ladder, you are better off here in America. And that would appear to be true starting pretty far down on that ladder (somewhere below the median for sure).

There is more to say (and I will say it!), but for now, here is the take-home story: In America, you start at the same place on the economic ladder relative to the other industrialized nations of Europe, but you get further ahead of your European counterpart as you climb.

Of course that's just the comparing the West, specifically Europe and America.

Part Two

Good News in the World

Part Two

More good news. Too much good stuff to quote here, really, with graphs and numbers.

Last year the combined output of emerging economies reached an important milestone: it accounted for more than half of total world GDP (measured at purchasing-power parity). This means that the rich countries no longer dominate the global economy. The developing countries also have a far greater influence on the performance of the rich economies than is generally realised. Emerging economies are driving global growth and having a big impact on developed countries' inflation, interest rates, wages and profits. As these newcomers become more integrated into the global economy and their incomes catch up with the rich countries, they will provide the biggest boost to the world economy since the industrial revolution.

In a nutshell, the GDP of the developing world is catching up with the developed world. And it's gaining at a remarkable clip. How fast?

Faster growth spreading more widely across the globe makes a huge difference to global growth rates. Since 2000, world GDP per head has grown by an average of 3.2% a year, thanks to the acceleration in emerging economies. That would beat the 2.9% annual growth during the golden age of 1950-73, when Europe and Japan were rebuilding their economies after the war; and it would certainly exceed growth during the industrial revolution. That growth, too, was driven by technological change and by an explosion in trade and capital flows, but by today's standards it was a glacial affair. Between 1870 and 1913 world GDP per head increased by an average of only 1.3% a year. This means that the first decade of the 21st century could see the fastest growth in average world income in the whole of history.

Whoa. But wait - there is more.

An alarming number of economic variables are currently way out of line with what conventional economic models would predict. America's current-account deficit is at a record high, yet the dollar has remained relatively strong. Global interest rates are still historically low, despite strong growth and heavy government borrowing. Oil prices have tripled since 2002, yet global growth remains robust and inflation, though rising, is still relatively low. House prices, however, have been soaring in many countries.

This survey will argue that all of these puzzles can be explained by the growing impact of emerging economies. For instance, low bond yields and the dollar's refusal to plunge are partly due to the way these countries have been piling up foreign reserves. Likewise, higher oil prices have mostly been caused by strong demand from developing countries rather than by an interruption of supply, so they have done less harm to global growth than in the past. And their impact on inflation has been offset by falling prices of goods exported by emerging economies. This has also made it easier for central banks to achieve their inflation goals with much lower interest rates than in the past.

Yet it's this gives me pause

This means that the first decade of the 21st century could see the fastest growth in average world income in the whole of history.

Part Three

Economic Volatility

Part Three

Niall Ferguson argues that there are three root causes of warfare

1) Ethnic hatred
2) Empires in decline
3) Economic volatility

Ethnic hatred - look around. Empires in decline; The European colonial empries are dust, the Soviet Union on the ashheap, the Chinese have their own troubles.

Economic volatility ". . . the first decade of the 21st century could see the fastest growth in average world income in the whole of history."

Interesting times ahead.

.. the world stiffles a yawn

I have a new favorite academic crush - Niall Ferguson

Madmen in charge of two of the world's major oil producers. A military coup in Thailand. Rioting in Budapest. A reforming Russian banker gunned down. There was a time when just one of those stories would have sent a spasm through emerging markets. Oil prices would have jumped. The Thai baht would have collapsed. Hungarian bond yields would have soared. The Russian stock market would have tanked.

Not a bit of it. The price of crude oil for November delivery fell 5 per cent last week, even as Messrs Ahmadinejad and Chávez were holding their rant-fest. On news of the coup in Bangkok, the Thai currency declined by little more than 1 per cent against the dollar – nothing compared with its spectacular gyrations during the Asian crisis of 1997. Investors in the Hungarian stock market are not having a great year, it's true, but recent political events have barely registered. If you invested in Budapest two years ago, you have still nearly doubled your money.

There are two ways of explaining this mystifying disconnect. One is that everything is going according to the dastardly plan of the infinitely cunning capitalist imperialist running dogs. In perfect unison, wacko demagogues from the developing world have been wrecking the credibility of the United Nations and making George W Bush look like a model of sweet reason. What more could Republican Party strategists have asked for in the run-up to November's midterms? As for military coups, bring them on. Let's have one in Hungary too. It is probably the only way to get that budget deficit of theirs down.

Well, maybe. The other possibility is that investors are continuing to mistake liquidity for security. Despite the much-trumpeted tightening of interest rates by the world's principal central banks, the reality is that monetary expansion has barely slowed. In Britain, for example, the broad money measure M4 grew at an annual rate of 13 per cent in July, a remarkable figure. Money may be dearer, but it is still amazingly plentiful. That seems to be encouraging a rather cavalier approach to risk assessment.

A professor of history writing as a subject matter expert on economics? Well, yes, actually.

Check out the show he did on Open Source Radio; it's worth a listen. And he's written a book that appears to be worth reading as well - it's my next purchase.

Pseudo Blog

NASA Watch (Hi, Keith) reports

According to comments made in this post on her blog, Anousheh Ansari is not "blogging from space", as some of her pre-launch hype claimed she would be doing. Instead, she is simply sending emails that are eventually posted on a website/blog - one that is totally maintained by someone else. Yawn - astronauts have been doing this for years.

True but perhaps irrelevant. Is there such a thing as a pseudo blog? What matters is the impact and judging by the comments I've seen her blog it's having an impact of a very good kind in a part of the world that needs it most.

Desert Spaceport Nears Launch

Amazing world we live in.

Visitors to Spaceport America must first navigate the frontier before reaching the final frontier.

Across dirt roads, through deep puddles, and past a few cows — where a 4x4 is a way of life rather than an automotive trend — the outlines of a spaceport that will launch technology and people above Earth are just coming into view. For now, these 27 square miles of dirt one hour outside the town of Truth or Consequences mostly consist of two portable buildings, a corrugated steel shed, and two Port-A-Potties — one pink, one blue. Oh, and a launch pad, of course.

Meaningful Work or Death

Hugh MacLeod is a (gasp) Puritan

Now taking time of from the daily grind in order to recharge our batteries I don't have a problem with. Heck, that's what The Sabbath was invented for ["All a child needs to be happy are two things: a hard wooden chair and a Bible" etc].

Where the problem arises is when this "Leisure Time" starts taking over. Becoming no longer a means [recharging], but an end it itself, what we call a [shudder] “Lifestyle”. When your work stops being your "Real Life", and "Leisure" starts becoming your real life i.e. When your job just becomes this unpleasant "thing", something with no other meaningful function other than to finance your new "Real Life" i.e your “Lifestyle”... you know, the expensive part with all the shopping, beaches, cocktail parties, vacuous conversations etc.

Sure, I know this Work/Life schism started a long time ago, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the time clock, Marxist-worker alienation from the means of production etc etc [Some people prefer the term "balance" over "schism"; they are deluded], so it's very ingrained into our culture.

I renounce it, regardless.

Meaningful Work or Death. Any other form of existence doesn’t interest me. Thanks Be To God.

I've got a new tagline for my business cards. Thanks, Hugh!

Zimbabwe

When you can't pay your bills and your provider reduces - but does not halt - your internet access what is it called?

Mugabe accuses former colonial power Britain of leading a Western campaign of economic sabotage.

Right. How funny that Mugabe is doing everything in his power to help Britain with that campaign.

President Robert Mugabe's government is grappling with an eight-year recession, the world's highest inflation rate of 1,200 percent, shortages of foreign currency, food, fuel, and unemployment above 70 percent.

All self-inflicted problems

The forced removal of the white farmers caused sharp rises in prices of agricultural commodities such as corn and sugar, and the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy. Zimbabwe was formerly an important net food exporter to the region, but in recent years starvation has been widespread because of Mugabe's land reform policy, which redistributed land to political supporters of Mugabe who do not farm the land efficiently. This has left the large majority of landless blacks worse off, due to a catastrophic fall in productivity, a spectacular rise in inflation (1000% in May 2006) and widespread unemployment.[3]

Only inept politics can explain how a country can go from being a net exporter of food to a place that is an economic and political basket-case in a few years.

Stuff like this doesn't just happen - you've got to be work hard at it. \

Via.

The Really, Really FREE Market

From William Gillis.

I wasn't sure what to make of this so I googled and lo.

The Really, Really Free Market movement is a nonhierarchical collective of individuals who form a temporary market based on an alternative gift economy. Markets often vary in character, but they generally contain both material objects and skill shares. Participants bring unneeded items, food, skills and talents such as entertainment or haircuts. A RRFM may take place in an open community space such as a public park or community commons.

Works for me. Something like a garage sale but without the motivation to display the goods in an attractive way. Dump your krep on the ground on a tarp in a big heap? Why not - you won't get a better price for going to all that trouble.

I could see this in the local town square (which is actually a triangle but it used to be a square). Why, my wife could even trot out some of the stuff she's had for months that isn't selling in return for good-will and showing the flag. This might be contrary to the spirit of the thing ...

From the Mailbag

Submitted without comment.

Subject: HEY THERE FUNNY SPACE MAN
From: xxx@yyy.com
Date: 9/23/2006 10:48 PM
To: me@liftport.com

  ET. is very interested I am sure, maybe its time to stop being the blast off amateurs.

 

 Did the STS 115 crew have a good view of the  "TINY ICE CRYSTALS, TIN FOIL & LINT" - LOL

 

 Maybe you could fetch some of that tin foil and WEAR IT as a dunce cap all of you NASA SECRET KEEPERS BROTHERHOOD OF SLACKERS AND KNOWLEDGE PIRATES only one problem, its not tin foil stupid WIZARD OF OZ MANIPULATORS BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF REALITY.

 

WHERES YOUR TIN MAN? sucking up more tax money for his corporate schmucks?

 

 

  Look & hear NASA-nano-bots - your outer space ancestors are monitoring your every move and they are not too fond of your secret atmospheric project either. Next time you may be held at bay longer for a SERIOUS REALTY CHECK.

 

Christopher *Gray Williams

 

     PROJECT ZEUS

 

http://www.nasanoodles.com

 

 

 

  DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL FOR I DON'T TAKE KINDLY TO SPACE REALITY MANIPULATORS. I do however like your new endeavor Mr. Dunbar and think you may be close to the new solution to the idiocy of blasting space ships into space like space children with out dated toy's.

 Our planet can no longer tolerate this idiocy with out an extinction of humans for the third time around.

 

LAST WORD WILL BE MINE FOR EVER AND HERE IT IS

 

Regarding the future of religion and science when one day planET-Earth humans scratch their heads after it is revealed creation and evolution both co-exist.  P.S. feel free to quote me on that when you religious fools grow up,  God is everything that exist and even that which does not. GOD IS MATTER & GOD IS ANTI MATTER but most of all GOD is not a religion. lol from the heavens as the mighty Zeus thunderous roar of laughter moves continents and seas one day soon.

 

 Christopher Gray Williams

 

p.s. I broke the ET coded transmission i will send you the word soon.

 

NO JOKE FUNNY MAN

Breaking regulations

John Cena - The Marine

A heroic Marine who returns home after being discharged - against his will - from the Iraq War. Stateside he finds ..

You could probably guess the rest. Wife kidnapped, gang of black-hats have raped his dog, and someone broke into his storage unit and jacked his CD collection. Bastards.

Question - if he's a Marine why in the name of Chesty Puller is he wearing an army cover?

Clearly not a movie that works hard to sweat the details. I ain't even going to go into what's wrong with his haircut.

24 MEU - the float is getting to them

Or as Mike the Marine said "they're embracing the suck".

Stuck on Iwo Jima

I almost killed a sailor
just to get some chow
Finally made it up there
and the rolls are out.
Now some chow hall Nazi tells me
"Boys you need to leave."
Waited all this time
and I never got to eat.

Because when you watch NBC, America wins!

From Matthew Ingram

Rex Sorgatz of Fimoculous.com may just be right — this clip on YouTube may be the funniest NBC promo ever.

Because when you watch NBC, America wins!

That is pretty funny. Funniest ever? Well there isn't much competition is there?

So Jesus and Moses walk into a bar ...

From Samizdata

So Jesus and Moses walk into a bar. They take a moment to look around.
After a moment they look at each other and breathe a sigh of relief.
Moses looks at Jesus and says, ‘Thank God that Mohammad isn’t here.
This joke could have led to riots.’

The Two Things

From The Two Things

The Story of the Two Things

A few years ago, I was chatting with a stranger in a bar. When I told him I was an economist, he said, “Ah. So… what are the Two Things about economics?”

“Huh?” I cleverly replied.

“You know, the Two Things. For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay, here are the Two Things about economics. One: Incentives matter. Two: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Ever since that evening, I’ve been playing the Two Things game. Whenever I meet someone who belongs to a different profession (i.e., a profession I haven’t played this game with), or who knows something about a subject I'm unfamiliar with, I pose the Two Things question. I also posed the Two Things question on my blog, where it elicited many responses in the comments section and on otherblogs. This page is a collection of responses to the "Two Things" question, collected from various pages on the web, with credit given when possible.

The Two Things about the Two Things

1. People love to play the Two Things game, but they rarely agree about what the Two Things are.
2. That goes double for anyone who works with computers.

These caught my eye

The Two Things about Engineering:
1) It's all about tradeoffs.
2) The tradeoffs are all about money, time, and quality.

The Two Things about Project Management:
1. The schedule will slip.
2. It's about how you manage the schedule slippage.

What are your two things?

Cross posted to Liftport.

Trust.

Robert Reich is pining for the fiords. Or at least the good old days when the government knew best. I wonder when, exactly, this was?

But I remember a day when government collected billions of dollars from tycoons like these, as well as from ordinary taxpayers, and when our democratic process (in its own halting way) decided what the billions would be devoted to. In 1960, the moguls of America paid a marginal tax of 90 percent on their incomes (an effective rate, after all deductions and credits, of over 50 percent). In 1960, over two-thirds of Americans trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time, according to survey research.

Now, the moguls pay an effective rate of maybe 10 percent of their incomes – none at all if they have clever enough accountants and lawyers who park it in tax havens. And they're richer than ever before in history. Today's release of Forbes Magazine's annual list of the richest 400 Americans is made up solely of billionaires -- for the first time.

And what about government? Now, according to surveys, two-thirds of Americans don’t trust government to do anything right.

So nowadays, a few hundred of the moguls devote some of their billions to doing good things, and we applaud their generosity.

Maybe I’m overly sentimental, but I preferred it the old way.

You can't go home again, you can't go back.

He hit the nail on the head - a majority of Americans don't trust the government to do the right thing.

Why should we?  Watergate, ABSCAM, Desert One, corruption scandals too many to list, pols lining their pockets, consulting with astrologers, artfully saying just enough so the public can't say 'he's lying' when we all know 'he is', an absolute failure to prevent an attack that killed thousands, while private citizens wise up and rise up and keep the death toll from being much worse.

Maybe it's always been like this - I don't know. The constant political refrain I've heard growing up is that that power corrupts, people in power will use and abuse their power and it takes heaven on earth to vote those rascals out only to see more rascals voted in.

Trust the government to spend my tax money wisely? I can't trust them not to abuse their petty privleges of office, I damned sure can't trust them with billions of dollars in revenue.

Deep breath and repeat after me: Despair is a sin.

The puppy helps.

Dr. Edwards, meet the Blogsphere. Blogsphere, meet Dr. Edwards.

Dr. Edwards, meet the Blogsphere. Blogsphere, meet Dr. Edwards. Blogsphere, be nice to Dr. Edwards.

The space elevator burst onto the scene a few short years ago and has gained a lot of attention. The media and our community have distributed vast amounts of information but not all of it is correct. This has created misconceptions of the concept and may damage the long-term viability of the program. Working with Marc and Bryan I hope that we can make www.spaceelevator.com the source of accurate, objective information on the space elevator as well as a resource for those who want to learn more or directly be involved in the effort. We hope to place valuble, vetted information on this site and commentary on articles and information that appears elsewhere as well as your feedback. If you as an interested reader have questions on the elevator we hope you will come here for the answer. We also hope that as a resource we will be able to post major technical papers, review papers and aid in forming collaborations. To make this work we will need your help. We welcome comments and leads on breaking information and want to work with the community to make this the primary source for all things related to the space elevator. - Brad Edwards

Welcome to the blogsphere, Dr. Edwards. You might get off to a better start by enabling comments on that post. And links .. links are good as well.

Cross posted at Liftport.

Bring Them Freedom, Or They Destroy Us

Worth the read

Bring Them Freedom, Or They Destroy Us

By Bernard Lewis

By common consent among historians, the modern history of the Middle
East begins in the year 1798, when the French Revolution arrived in
Egypt in the form of a small expeditionary force led by a young general
called Napoleon Bonaparte--who conquered and then ruled it for a while
with appalling ease. General Bonaparte--he wasn't yet
Emperor--proclaimed to the Egyptians that he had come to them on behalf
of a French Republic built on the principles of liberty and equality.
We know something about the reactions to this proclamation from the
extensive literature of the Middle Eastern Arab world. The idea of
equality posed no great problem. Equality is very basic in Islamic
belief: All true believers are equal. Of course, that still leaves
three "inferior" categories of people--slaves, unbelievers and women.
But in general, the concept of equality was understood. Islam never
developed anything like the caste system of India to the east or the
privileged aristocracies of Christian Europe to the west. Equality was
something they knew, respected, and in large measure practiced. But
liberty was something else.

More at the link. Via.

"Tired" Pope Slams Uppitty Foreigners

Well, no. But my, it's funny.

"Tired" Pope Slams Uppitty Foreigners

An "emotional" Pope Benedict XVI has lashed out at protesting heathens in a shocking four-letter rant.

More at the link.  Via The Devill

Bruce doesn't like the Pope

Bruce doesn't like the Pope

I've not liked this new Pope from the start. From his first days he has shown strong allegiance to right-wing policies. I can’t help but wonder if this "conservative" Pope made his provocative statement knowing that there would be a massive reaction? Then his tepid "not quite" apologies have only made the Moslem world even angrier.

You'd think he was, like, the leader of a traditional religious faith or something. Darn it all if only he were a Unitarian or something.

Just Russians

If you're of a certain age you have no idea how weird it is to see Russians and not Soviets launching rockets from Asia, and the tricolor Russian Federation flag and not a red banner with a hammer and sickle.

This is a great time to be alive

These, brothers and sisters, are great days.

I'm watching, live, on satellite TV, a Russian space ship automatically dock with a space station. A passenger - an Iranian immigrant who didn't even speak English when she came to his country at the tender age of 16, paid her way to get there. Another space ship just left that station and is coming back home. Robot probes are flying hither and yon across the solar system, plans are afoot to return to the moon and establish a genuine presence, not a few years ago a private company launched their own sub-orbital craft, a British billionaire is building his own fleet to fly tourists to space ..

And yes, novel launch systems are in the offing.

I watch all of this and I at least can't help but feel that these are the best days of all to be alive. If we're lucky these are the beginnings of great things for our species.

At any rate, that's how I felt watching Anousheh Ansari and her shipmates dock with ISS.

Thomas f'ing Edison

Ask a Russian engineer to design you a shoe, and he'll give you something that looks like the box the shoe came in. Ask him to design something that will slaughter Germans, and he turns into Thomas fucking Edison.
~ Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon

A T-34 was submerged in a lake for 56 years. Some plucky Estonians pulled it out. Everything was in working order except the engine.

Give the Soviets their due - they make made really rugged killing machines.

Express lift to the stars

CNN.com - Express lift to the stars - Sep 18, 2006

Edwards views the future of space development as contingent on commercial application and private funding.



"NASA spends around $16bn a year on their space program, with the cost of sending up one space shuttle at about $500m. With such high costs, it is understandable that they need to use mature technology that they know works. They are naturally risk-adverse.



"Commercial development and private funding is crucial to the future of space exploration. The space elevator would make space accessible for so many more people, so we believe the funding will come once the benefits are realised. Once we've proved the technology works, we firmly believe that the project will open up space for generations to come."

To forgive . . .

From Joe Huffman

Jake was dying. His wife sat at the bedside.

He looked up and said weakly: "I have something I must confess."

"There's no need to, " his wife replied.

"No," he insisted, "I want to die in peace. I slept with your sister, your best friend, her best friend, and your mother!"

"I know," she replied, "now just rest and let the poison work."

Belgium Snark

From Matthew Wingram - Belgium snark.

Well done, Belgium. Now you can join that small group of morons currently dominated by Agence France-Presse, which successfully had itself (and all of its member papers) removed from one of the world’s most popular news search engines.

Someone call the Waambulance

There is so much that could be said about this and this ... but others have said it far far better than I.

Really Islam? Seriously?

What are you? A fucking retarded toddler?
...

A fine rant, should be read and appreciated.

Quickie

"if there is one thing that the internets have to teach us, it is that
awfully smart people can be awfully dumb an awful lot of the time."

Courtesy of TBogg, via Mondolithic.

...

Keep chasing the monsters and the monsters will chase you.

From Kolchak - the Night Stalker