This should be a doddle for USians, but not so easy for those of us who always confuse those square-ish states in flyover country: Know Your States.
I managed 90%, but I dropped New Jersey accidentally, which certainly messed up my accuracy.
H/T to “JtMc” for the link.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005585.html.)
On July 20th, it will have been 40 years since many of us clustered around our tiny black-and-white televisions, watching the first moon landing (or for those of you of conspiracist leanings, a really convincing sound stage in Area 51). Why, after all this time, haven’t we gone further? Why, for that matter, have we not been back to the moon for over a generation? Ronald Bailey explains the real reason:
The Apollo moon landings have often been compared to the explorations of Christopher Columbus and the Lewis and Clark expedition to Oregon. For example, on the 20th anniversary of the first moon landing, President George H.W. Bush declared, “From the voyages of Columbus to the Oregon Trail to the journey to the Moon itself: history proves that we have never lost by pressing the limits of our frontiers.”
But what boosters of the moon expeditions overlook is that the motive for pressing the limits of our frontiers in those cases was chiefly profit. In his report from his first voyage, Columbus predicted that his explorations would result in “vast commerce and great profit.” The extension of commerce was also the chief justification that President Thomas Jefferson gave in his secret message to Congress requesting $2,500 to fund what would become the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Forty years later, as we bask in the waning prestige that the Apollo missions earned our country, we must keep in mind that humanity will some day colonize the moon and other parts of the solar system, but only when it becomes profitable to do so.
Back in 1969, my friend Alan Fairfield and I sat in fascination (at least in the golden memory, they do . . . we were nine: I doubt that we paid as much attention to the broadcast as his mother thought we should). Mrs. Fairfield told us that we’d be able to go to the moon ourselves by the time we were grown up. It didn’t turn out that way, and at the current rate of progress, it may not turn out that way for my grandkids.
But I still hope, one day . . .
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005583.html.)
[Alan Oak]: In a correspondence with feminist scholar Sylvia Kelso, published in Women of Other Worlds (1999), you wrote:
“Where has anyone experienced a matriarchy for test comparison?” you may ask. In fact, most of us have, as children. When the scale of our whole world was one long block long, it was a world dominated and controlled by women. Who were twice our size, drove cars, had money, could hit us if they wanted to and we couldn’t ever hit them back. Hence, at bottom, my deep, deep suspicion of feminism, matriarchy, etc. Does this mean putting my mother in charge of the world, and me demoted to a child again? No thanks, I’ll pass . . .
This leads me to another thought [. . .] Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal. Nothing is more likely to set any subordinate’s back up, whether they be male or female, than for their boss to come the “mother knows best” routine at them. We need a third place to stand. I’m just not clear how it became my job to supply it.
Lois McMaster Bujold, interviewed by Alan Oak at WomenWriters.net, 2009-06
Stepping out of the Matrix back-story and moving to replace the human soldier, the EATR:
A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.
Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.
That “biomass” and “other organically-based energy sources” wouldn’t necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they’d be plentiful in a war zone.
Just a tad creepy . . .
H/T to Alex Haropulos for the link.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005581.html).
Update, 20 July: Oh, it’s okay. They claim it’s a vegetarian. It’s not going to snack on the battlefield casualties after all.
Rather a bold claim, but Aidan Malley makes some good points:
Analyst Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research likens the relationship between Apple and AT&T as that between the former and music labels dating as far back as 2001, when Apple first had to ingratiate itself with labels as it incorporated music CD ripping into iTunes. Apple at first won important concessions and praise from its partners, only for them to regret it later as the iPod maker’s popularity left these companies at the supposedly smaller company’s mercy.
[. . .]
The attack is such that Apple has all but taken control of the partnership, according to the analyst. Now, the Cupertino company has “radically tilted” the normal balance of power against AT&T and cellular networks as a whole. If Apple preferred another carrier, many iPhone owners would switch to preserve the experience they already have; an incentive that forces carriers to keep the handset maker happy. At times, though, it also has the caustic effect of suggesting an conspiracy at the carrier to limit useful services, such as voice over IP calls, when cost or technical reasons are the real motivators.
And while the US government may be close to investigating exclusivity deals as possibly anti-competitive, Moffett argues that Apple’s presence in the marketplace has actually helped competition by forcing companies to keep reasonable service rates and let apps dictate business rather than network services. Government intervention could paradoxically hurt the industry by telling providers how much they could discount a phone and hardware developers which networks they would have to support.
I’d have to say he’s absolutely correct with the point on user loyalty . . . if Rogers stopped supporting the iPhone, I’d be moving my business to whoever took it over from Rogers. I’m certain that this is true of the vast majority of iPhone users. I was Bell customer for a long time, but the iPhone was enough inducement for me to switch cell phone companies.
That’s a pretty big club for Apple to use to get its own way in any negotiations with cell phone companies.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005580.html.)
Not quite live here yet, which is why I’m cross-posting most items between the old blog (hosted at bolditalic.com) and this one. If you’ve just stumbled upon the site, feel free to also check out the old blog at http://www.bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness/ for several years of banality.
Just a few links to provide you with click-therapy:
Sure hope those were temporary tattoos!
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005579.html.)
While I enjoyed my visit and tour of Monticello, back in 2006, I didn’t get the full story. Wired tries to rectify that problem:
Thomas Jefferson loved new technology and modding his surroundings to his lifestyle. From food to comfort to efficiency, he was always looking for ways to improve his living space with inventions and hacks. If he were alive today, we like to think he’d be reading Wired.
Jefferson thought of his house, Monticello, as a machine for living. As such, it contains many insights into how a DIY gear-nut of today might have fared in the 18th Century.
“I would argue we are trying to debunk the madman-genius, nutty-professor image of Thomas Jefferson,” said Monticello curator Elizabeth Chew. “He is someone who was trying to adapt the latest technology in every realm of existence: science, how the house functions, in the garden. He is trying to put into use new ideas.”
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005578.html.)
Ronald Bailey looks at the too-good-to-be-true claims made for caloric reduction as a life-extending tool:
Last week, two research teams reported to great fanfare that restricting the calories consumed by rhesus monkeys had extended their lifespans. Calorie restriction is thought to increase longevity by boosting DNA repair. The idea is that the mechanism evolved so that creatures on the verge of starvarion could live long enough to reproduce when food becomes plentiful again. But did the experiments really show the CR works?
In my earlier blogpost on the research results, I noted that some experts quoted in the New York Times were not convinced. Why? Because the difference in actual death rates between the dieting monkeys and the free feeding monkeys was not statistically significant.
This doesn’t necessarily derail the notion that calorie restriction may be associated with increased lifespan, but the way this study was performed does not appear to prove anything due to rigging of the data.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005577.html.)
Craig Zeni sent along this useful link, which allows you to check the results of a search sent to both Bing and Google (so far, in my tests, Google is the hands-down winner): http://www.bing-vs-google.com/.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005576.html.)
With all the unending uproar about how Grand Gears of BioDoomShockWar encourages violence and anti-social behaviour among boys, games for girls have been travelling under the radar. No longer:
Ridiculous Life Lessons From New Girl Games
Some parents worry that videogames might cause their children to become violent and antisocial, but what if the opposite were true? What if games could make kids exceedingly likable and fashionable?A wave of new games for tween girls seeks to do just that, serving up innocuous gameplay designed to let players become perfect little princesses. Aimed at that lucrative, Hannah Montana-fueled intersection of childhood and adolescence, these games might give 8- to 12-year-olds their first experiences with fashion, make-up, popularity . . . even boys.
The weird thing is that you can view these “wholesome” games as being just as bad for girls as Grand Theft Auto’s random bloodshed and rampant criminality is for young, impressionable boys. And while GTA‘s influence on boys has been dissected to death, what about the Nintendo DS’ upcoming avalanche of games for tween girls? What kinds of values do preteens learn from these titles? Valuable life lessons, or bad habits?
Just for the record, I think kids are far more resilient than either class of critic can imagine. Playing a violent video game does not, in my experience, turn youngsters into nihilistic killers, nor would I expect girls to turn into proto-Stepford Wives after playing one of these “girly” games. Kids who have pre-existing problems may find more than just entertainment value in games, but (as with so many other “problems”), depriving everyone of the opportunity just to keep some people away from it isn’t the answer . . . nor — if our collective long experiences with prohibiting drugs, sex, alcohol, and risky behaviour of all kinds — will it be any more successful.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005575.html.)
Rick Newcombe provides an insight into why Los Angeles is suffering from a killer combination of rising unemployment and tax rates that no longer meet expenses:
[. . .] 15 years ago we had a dispute with the city over our business tax classification. The city argued that we should be in an “occupations and professions” classification that has an extremely high tax rate, while we fought for a “wholesale and retail” classification with a much lower rate. The city forced us to invest a small fortune in legal fees over two years, but we felt it was worth it in order to establish the correct classification once and for all.
After enduring a series of bureaucratic hearings, we anxiously awaited a ruling to find out what our tax rate would be. Everything was at stake. We had already decided that if we lost, we would move.
You can imagine how relieved we were on July 1, 1994, when the ruling was issued. We won, and firmly planted our roots in the City of Angels and proceeded to build our business.
Everything was fine until the city started running out of money in 2007. Suddenly, the city announced that it was going to ignore its own ruling and reclassify us in the higher tax category. Even more incredible is the fact that the new classification was to be imposed retroactively to 2004 with interest and penalties. No explanation was given for the new classification, or for the city’s decision to ignore its 1994 ruling.
Their official position is that the city is not bound by past rulings — only taxpayers are. This is why we have been forced to file a lawsuit. We will let the courts decide whether it is legal for adverse rulings to apply only to taxpayers and not to the city.
The rule of law requires that both parties are equally subject to the outcome of a trial, win or lose. The city clearly feels that it’s above that.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005574.html.)
Victor sent me this link with the comment “Thought you might find this interesting… Worrisome, even.” He was right, I do find it quite disturbing:
As part of a revision to defamation legislation, the Dail (Irish Parliament) passed legislation creating a new crime of blasphemy. Update: The bill went to the Seanad on Friday, July 10, passing by a single vote. This attack on free speech, debated for several months in Europe, has gone largely unnoticed in the American press.
[. . .] How does this impact free speech? Just don’t be rude.
- Atheists can be prosecuted for saying that God is imaginary. That causes outrage.
- Pagans can be prosecuted for saying they left Christianity because God is violent and bloodthirsty, promotes genocide, and permits slavery.
- Christians can be prosecuted for saying that Allah is a moon god, or for drawing a picture of Mohammed, or for saying that Islam is a violent religion which breeds terrorists.
- Jews can be prosecuted for saying Jesus isn’t the Messiah.
At risk of being too flippant, it’s really just a codification of the kind of thought pattern exemplified by Canada’s various “Human Rights” commissions, focusing on religion, rather than other forms of free thought and free expression.
The actual text of the new legislation goes a long way to convert the police into uniformed Revolutionary Guards:
36. Publication or utterance of blasphemous matter.
(1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000. [Amended to €25,000]
2) For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if (a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion, and (b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.
(3) It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates.
37. Seizure of copies of blasphemous statements.
(1) Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 36, the court may issue a warrant (a) authorising any member of the Garda Siochana to enter (if necessary by the use of reasonable force) at all reasonable times any premises (including a dwelling) at which he or she has reasonable grounds for believing that copies of the statement to which the offence related are to be found, and to search those premises and seize and remove all copies of the statement found therein, (b) directing the seizure and removal by any member of the Garda Siochana of all copies of the statement to which the offence related that are in the possession of any person, © specifying the manner in which copies so seized and removed shall be detained and stored by the Garda Siochana.
(2) A member of the Garda Siochana may (a) enter and search any premises, (b) seize, remove and detain any copy of a statement to which an offence under section 36 relates found therein or in the possession of any person, in accordance with a warrant under subsection (1).
(3) Upon final judgment being given in proceedings for an offence under section 36, anything seized and removed under subsection (2) shall be disposed of in accordance with such directions as the court may give upon an application by a member of the Garda Siochana in that behalf.
What’s the Gaelic for “Death to the infidel”? Expect to hear a lot of it in the future.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005573.html.)
He may be less familiar now, but most of us have heard of his most popular work: Parkinson’s Law:
The book expanded on an article of his first published in The Economist in November 1955. Illustrated by Britain’s then leading cartoonist, Osbert Lancaster, the book was an instant hit. It was wrapped around the author’s “law” that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion”. Thus, Parkinson wrote, “an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis . . . the total effort that would occupy a busy man for three minutes all told may in this fashion leave another person prostrate after a day of doubt, anxiety and toil.”
Parkinson’s barbs were directed first and foremost at government institutions — he cited the example of the British navy where the number of admiralty officials increased by 78% between 1914 and 1928, a time when the number of ships fell by 67% and the number of officers and men by 31%. But they applied almost equally well to private industry, which was at the time bloated after decades spent adding layers and layers of managerial bureaucracy.
(Crossposted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005572.html.
Hard to come up with a better title than this one:
Once an empire, Britain faces big military cuts:
Afghanistan operations in the future could be affected.[. . .] at a time of overwhelming public support for its service men and women, the global recession is causing Britain to face hard choices about its future military role in the world — putting at risk plans to build new aircraft carriers and heralding consequences for everything from operations alongside the US in Afghanistan to whether the UK remains nuclear-armed.
The start of the first full-scale official review of Britain’s defense forces in more than 10 years was announced on Tuesday. It came within days of three of Britain’s most influential independent research institutes forecasting that the £34 billion (about $54 billion) defense budget will be seriously cut.
The question of whether to support a £76 billion ($124 billion) program to replace Britain’s aging Trident nuclear weapons system also looms large.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), warned that the UK cannot afford much of the defense equipment it plans to buy, questioned the value of renewing the submarine-launched Trident nuclear deterrent, and said it was “delusional” to think the UK could act alone without closer European defense cooperation.
Actually, the “delusion” is that there is any will in Western Europe for any kind of military action, under any circumstances.
(Cross-posted to the old blog: http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005571.html.)
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