…of our government nannies (and ninnies). My thoughts, over at PJMedia.
Category Archives: Business
Will Computer Wonders Never Cease?
In addition to booting on my new motherboard, Fedora 21 (unlike Fedora 20) will boot on my laptop. So after almost a year of having to live with Windows 8.1 on the road, I’ll have a dual-boot machine again after I get it installed and configured.
It’s A Wonderful Fountainhead
What was It’s A Wonderful Life really about?
That Fake North Korea Twitter Account
Newsweek interviews some Popehat guys.
The Keynesians
…are wrong again. At least they’re consistent.
Virgin Galactic’s New Web Site
A lot of the previous hype seems to have gone down the memory hole. As Doug writes, it’s a shame that it took the destruction of a vehicle and death of a pilot to finally get them to tone it down.
A Scarcity Of Start Ups
You’ll be as shocked as me to discover that it strongly correlates with an increase in influence peddling.
The Wright Anniversary
It’s been 111 years. On the centennial, eleven years ago, I wrote three pieces. One at Fox News, one at TechCentralStation (which later became TCSDaily), and one at National Review on line. Unfortunately, the latter seems to have suffered from link rot. I’m trying to find out if it still exists on their server.
[Evening update]
National Review has resurrected my other piece.
Friday’s Barge Landing
Here‘s the SpaceX press release. Note that no government agency is funding them to do this. It’s actual internal R&D, a rarity in this industry, at least up until now. Also, if NASA was doing this, they’d spend billions up front on analysis. In contrast, SpaceX is flying, and failing, and improving, and flying again, and failing and improving. They may not land on Friday, but they’ll be a lot closer to being able to do it.
[Update a while later]
Why the CRS-5 mission could change everything.
Our Dependence On Russian Engines
“Certainly the NDAA places future restrictions on the use of the Russian engines for national security space applications. Our application is in civil space. There’s a long history of U.S.-Russian cooperation in civil space, dating back to Apollo-Soyuz in the 1970s at the height of the Cold War. Since our immediate objective is in civil space supporting the International Space Station, it’s got a slightly different twist or perspective than supporting national security space. NASA already relies on cooperation with its Russian partner in other ways to execute the ISS program [including] crew transport. Certainly it would not make sense to restrict the use of engines manufactured in Russia on a program that’s already inherently dependent on cooperation between the United States and Russia.”
In other words, civil space isn’t important. We cooperated with the Soviets during the Cold War, but we were never dependent on them. I assume this means more INKSNA waivers.