If you’re interested in philosophy but don’t have a background in it, check out The Philosopher’s Magazine. It’s a philosophy version of Popular Science or Discover Magazine. I’ve subscribed for a year now, and I’m happy with it. It’s not mindbogglingly deep, but it also doesn’t presume familiarity with lots of jargon, so it’s a nice way to stimulate the mind without the frustration of running to the dictionary (or Google) all the time.
All posts by Andrew Case
The Philosopher’s Magazine
If you’re interested in philosophy but don’t have a background in it, check out The Philosopher’s Magazine. It’s a philosophy version of Popular Science or Discover Magazine. I’ve subscribed for a year now, and I’m happy with it. It’s not mindbogglingly deep, but it also doesn’t presume familiarity with lots of jargon, so it’s a nice way to stimulate the mind without the frustration of running to the dictionary (or Google) all the time.
Spreading the meme…
Over at RLV News Clark Lindsey writes:
Rand Simberg has been after to me to change the name of this page from RLV News to Space Transport News. Not quite ready to do that but I will promise to refer to the SS1 missions as “flights” rather than “launches”. I suggest that all you alt.spacers out there take the pledge as well. Time that we transition out of thinking of spaceflight as a series of one-offs and start thinking in terms of spaceship departures and arrivals instead.
Sounds good to me. Now that I’m done posting, I think I’ll shut down my reusable computation machine, get into my reusable wheeled transportation device, and head back to my reusable dwelling unit 🙂
Columbia Lessons Learned
There’s a piece up on Spaceref on the lessons from the Columbia accident. I don’t think there’s anything really new there, but it’s worth a read anyway.
One thing that stands out is this quote, from Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Culture and games
I firmly believe that the single most important area of scientific research is cognitive psychology (the rigorous branch of psych, not the motherlovin’ it’s-just-a-cigar-to-me-but-you’re-a-pervert freudian crap). There’s an interesting article on the results of a cross cultural comparison of behavior in some simple games here. This sort of thing helps get at what human nature really is and what’s just cultural overlay. The results are interesting, and generate more questions than answers, but at least the questions are well posed.
btw, welcome back, Rand. I hope the moving problems resolve painlessly.
Top 10 Reasons NOT to go into space
Via RocketForge, apparently one of the things that came up at the recent ISDC conference was 10 reasons not to go into space.
I particularly like #9 Space is “just another rich white guy’s playground”, kind of like the deep ocean is just another rich white guy’s playground, right? In the short term, space development will quite likely involve rich white guys getting their jollies. The RWGs will subsidize technology development that will get the rest of us up there. Sounds great to me – after all, joyrides into space will have a lot better impact on the long term future of humanity than an equivalent amount of money spent on a game fishing vacation.
Incidentally, it looks like there’s an NSS blog now, with Arthur Smith at the helm (or at least lurking in the pilothouse 🙂 I look forward to reading it.
Spaceflight legislation languishes
Who is Armed Liberal?
Over at Winds of Change my favorite member of the WoC crew has decided to drop the pseudonym and let us know that Armed Liberal is Marc Danziger. He’s the new C.O.O. of Spirit of America, a charity that’s working to make life better for Iraqis and in doing so portray America in a more favorable light. I’ve said before that the current conflict is all about perceptions. Spirit of America is on track to make us all safer by making it harder for the enemy to recruit. I believe that efforts like this will have a greater effect in the long run than any purely military operation (which is not to suggest that military operations are unneccessary in the short term). Check out the site and see if you can help out.
Latest Armadillo Update
…is here. Two movies of flights, including a minor prang.
Nice Introduction To Airfoils
I came across a rather nice little page on aerodynamics for nonspecialists today. I’ve been slowly teaching myself the basics needed to understand the design of aircraft, and this page provided some good simple background. Plenty of pictures, and clear text.