We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
One of the oldest refrains of those who bash capitalism is that speculators are bad people, inflating the ‘true’ price of X or Y from its supposed ‘correct’ level. It is no surprise that at the moment, those who speculate in the market for oil and other sought-after commodities like copper and gold are getting a lot of abuse. I guess they can take it. As I mentioned in this post on the same issue of the oil price, the level that crude oil is fetching in the market has been pushed to high levels for a whole host of reasons, with speculation playing a part, but not necessarily the major part.
In any field of endeavour where there are different appetites for taking on risk, you will get speculators. Speculators take the risk of a price going up or down that others are unwilling, for whatever reason, to shoulder. If it were not for speculators trading in those mysterious things like interest rate swaps or futures, I would not be able to have a fixed-rate mortgage on my house, for example. At the moment, hedge funds and other operators are willing to bet that the price of oil will go higher, and presumably could get cleaned out if the price turns, on say, a sudden discovery of a major oil reserve, an outbreak of peace in the Middle East, return to political sanity in Venezuela, or whatever. So just as one should not weep over the losses speculators make, it would be equally foolish to carp about the gains they are making now.
As for the Greens, they ought to be praising those strange-sounding investment vehicles called hedge funds. By pushing up oil to near $75 per barrel, they are doing their bit to show the folly of taking one’s children to school in those small trucks called SUVs, leaving the lights on all day and shunning alternative forms of energy. No wonder the share prices of alternative energy firms and even the nuclear sector are looking promising.
UPDATE: And this guy does not think much of the economic grasp of New York legal blowhard Elliot Spitzer, on a related topic.
Most folks on holiday like to unwind, relax, and take it easy. This means that tourists are not always the global community’s best behaved citizens. Now, as China increasingly enters the mainstream community of nations, Beijing is worried about the behavior of Chinese abroad.
Chinese tourists have been told by their government to watch their manners on holiday, as behaviour that “merely disgusts” at home might not be tolerated abroad.
Spitting, slurping food and skipping queues are the kind of “bad social graces” some Chinese tourists display while on holiday, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
“The increasing number of Chinese tourists travelling abroad may be a huge new source of income to destination countries, but that won’t prevent complaints against individuals from reflecting badly on all of China,” the report said.
I much prefer social pressures then state ones to stamp out anti-social behaviour. The more Chinese people see of the world, the less they are likely to indulge in anti-social behaviour. I must confess the sooner people anywhere give up spitting (and chewing gum), the happier I will be, however.
I finally managed to herd my Conference Coordinating Committee together to review a 2008 conference proposal and am somewhat less pushed for time the rest of the day. I am of course deep into sleep deprivation but that is a normal part of life at an ISDC, something I have learned to deal with over the 20 or so of the 25 I have attended.
Our collaboration with Planetary Society has been wildly successful and a pleasure to both parties.
Buzz Aldrin had a lively luncheon, including an hysterical fighter jock type joke which I will not quote in order to save his historical reputation. Buzz has been down to the Titanic and up to the North Pole and is now trying to get a hydrogen fueled Hummer drive at the South Pole. When Hugh Downs got up to leave he called to Buzz at the podium to count him in.
There is simply so much going on here I wish I had time to tell you more, process raw images, give more anecdotes. I feel like I am cheating you of the wondrousness of the week and the people and exhibits and talks. A full time live blogger could not cover it enough, let alone someone who is tied up in Society managment, committee and board meetings, organizational shmoozing and such.
Also, please forgive errors in spelling, punctuation and whatever else I manage to screw up while racing to get information on line during stolen moments
Shana Dale, the NASA Deputy Administrator (and also a rather nice looking southern gal), announced a set of Challenge prizes for lunar lander technology. Not dry as lunar dust stuff, but real flying hardware to compete at the Las Cruces Race for Space this coming October.
There are two levels of prize with different rewards. The competition will be held again next year if any awards are not made this year. The first level has a first prize of $350,000 and a second prize of $150,000 for a vehicle to make a vertical take off, climb to 50 meters; stay in hover for at least 90 seconds; translate 300 meters and land on a designated landing point. They may then optionally refuel before taking off again and doing the same in reverse. If more than one contestant manages the flights, placement is based on how close they landed to the designated point. If there is a tie, there will be a shoot out… the vehicle to do the most trips in an alloted time will be the winner.
Level Two is a bit harder and the prizes are $1,250,000 first; $500,000 second and $250,000 third place. For this money the must take off vertically take off, go up 50 feet; hover for 180 seconds; translate 300 meters and land in a wild bit of terrain in which remote pilotage is allowed.
This is the first NASA competition with a prize over a million dollars. They appear to be doing this right. They are working with people who handled the successful Anseri X-Prize with Burt Rutan won; it will be a great spectacle for the watching crowds at the rocket races; and it will as a side effect also boost earth based private launch technology.
With some luck I will be there to watch and record the competition this fall.
Personally, I would put my bet down on Jon Carmack’s Armadillo Aerospace.
To the surprise of no one who is not a professionally optomistic spin-doctor in the pay of the US government, the situation in Iraq has settled into a messy attrition war. Although the US cannot lose this contest militarily, it most certainly can lose politically.
However I think this as this latest bit of true propaganda (almost but not quite an oxymoron) shows, the other side in Iraq may be determined but that does not mean they are all that competent.
That said, I would not read too much into this… Churchill was also a fairly indifferent shot by many accounts.
Day 3 of sleep deprivation… I am off to see a session this morning and then to hunt down my commitee to review a proposal for the 2008 ISDC.
Lots of familiar faces around. Rand Simberg is in for a few days but is not lugging his lap top around. Perhaps he will post something later on when he gets bored on his next airplane flight. Also around is Taylor Dinerman, a journalist and regular commentator here.
Now… off to work again.
To say everyone was there is no exageration. Well, truthfully a few people were not: Richard Branson appeared on a video tape to accept his award. But amongst those honoured were Dennis Tito, the first space tourist. He also handed out awards. Bob Bigelow the space hotel magnate; Rich Searfoss astronaut and rocket racer pilot; Greg Olson, the latest space tourist; Eric Anderson; The Anseri family…
One of the highlights was when Hugh Downs gave Buzz Aldrin a lifetime achievement award.
I bid you good night. I am not doing it justice by a long shot, but I can hear the cans calling from two floors below…
It has been a busy afternoon and I am ready to go off to consume mass quantities. But I will give you a taste of the events.
I listened to the presentation by the Virgin Galactic crew in late afternoon. They are giving Burt Rutan whatever time he needs to develop a safe vehicle. Branson is going to take the first flight when Virgin takes over their SpaceShipTwo, and he is going to take his kids on the flight.
The pilots will all be from Virgin’s aviation companies and the first four, all highly experienced UK pilots, have already been selected.
There are 100 ‘founders’ fully paid up for the first flights of the vehicle. Victoria Principal is among them. The first honeymoon couple will be George Whitesides and Loretta Hidalgo of our own Society. George is our executive director. Another is Trevor Beatty. He may have worked for Tony Blair, but I took an instant liking to him from his enthusiasm for flying in space. He looked out at the huge crowd and said we knew more about it than he ever would… but… “I am going to Space!!!” he said in a voice tinged with awe.
He showed a video of high jumpers of years ago when they used to do the straddle to get over the bar. Then along came a new guy who went over backwards and changed everything. He said the same is happening in space but… “NASA… you are still straddling!”
Also, what can you say about a guy who took his childhood Buzz Lightyear along on his Mig25 flight to 90,000 feet so he could let it fly in the zero G?”
He said he wanted to be Buzz Aldrin when he was a kid. Then he grew up. And he still wants to be Buzz Aldrin. He noted with disdain that basketball players get called heroes and footballers genuises. He pointed to Buzz Aldrin in the front row and Burt Rutan elsewhere in the room as examples of a real hero and a real genuius.
Will Whitehorn finished up the session and I waited around until I got a chance to chat with him and impart important information I knew a good Scotsman like he needed: where the party is tonight! There is an old story there, involving a bunch of rocket scientists, killing the case and a certain Virgin Galactic CEO in a kilt…
Several times I have called for the Tory Party, at least in its current form, to be put to the torch so that a viable and genuine opposition party can form in Britain (even if it is called ‘The Tory party’) as an alternative to Blairism in its various forms.
But as I am hardly bashful about my hostility to modern conservatism, dislike for democratic political parties in general, contempt for that invertebrate David Cameron (or Tory Blair as I like to call him) and the whole class of people who appointed him, I do not expect my views to carry much weight with folks who take a less bile spitting view of the political system than me.
However it would seem that Peter Hitchens, who has been by any reasonable definition the very epitome of a core Daily Mail Tory and ‘sensible’ mainstream establishment figure, pretty much takes the same view that the current Tory Party needs to be destroyed. I have been mildly incredulous to read some of his more recent article in which he has started saying things which are more or less identical to a wild-eyed anti-establishment chap like me on this issue, and moreover for pretty much the same basic reasons.
I cannot help but wonder if all those large bodkins I have been sticking in this David Cameron doll I have dangling in front of me via a little noose have not started to pay off.
Burt Rutan spoke in his usual plain-speaking no-holds barred way. He is doing this because he wants to go to the moon before he dies and he figures that at 62 he has another 40 years or so; when he said this he was able to look down at people who have been there and one that: Buzz Aldrin and Rusty Schweickert seated in the audience just in front of his podium.
He took on NASA, the FAA, rocket racing, you name it. NASA’s Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) got a scathing commentary. He said he talked to Mike Griffin about it and did have to agree with Mike that if he, Burt, were in Mike’s seat, he would have to do the same thing. Burt says he thought about it and decided he would do one thing different. Early in the program he would call a press conference, request all the major aerospace publications be there, walk out to the podium and scream at the top of his lungs “THIS IS CRAZY!” and walk out.
What does Burt have against CEV? Pretty much the same thing everyone else does. It is an aerospace archaeology project, not a way to open the solar system. I am sure Rand Simberg will post more on this subject as he was at another table and also happens to work on CEV.
Burt does not like the regulatory environment. Most of the other companies wanted things to be done the way they are; basically do whatever you want, blow your own arse and customers up, but just do not kill anyone on the ground when your body parts hit. Burt would prefer regular FAA airplane certification.
A large contingent were there from Virgin Galactic; there were also quite a few of the people who have already paid for their flights. It was announced awhile back that Burt is building Space Ship II for the tourist business.
Burt says he is not looking at orbital. He does not have the solutions needed to make it cheap and safe, but is certain someone will come up with those solutions. For this reason he was down on the rocket racing idea because he feels it does not make people push the envelope out there where it needs to be pushed.
He also commented that in two years since he flew, none of the other X-Prize contestants has gone outside the atmosphere. He wishes they would get the finger out because unless lots of people do, he will not make his own goal of getting to the moon during his lifetime.
I do not have time to process photos right now, but I promise that sometime in the ensuing days or weeks I will put a few up. Now it is time to go hunt for my own committee so we can discuss the conference bid for 2008…
I have been running about madly all day and of course with too little sleep since I met up at the bar with the Aussie contingent last night. just a warm up; the nightly parties do not start until tonight: the Toronto 2009 bid team has the first.
The sea of people in the plenary session was a pleasing spectacle and we had quite a good set of kick off speakers, the most important of which were Elon Musk on SpaceX and Lou Friedman on the future of the Planetary Society’s solar sail project. Lou is talking more about this private project later in the day, so I will try to cover that story seperately.
Elon’s plans are big. Phase I is to dominate the satellite business; Phase II to handle human traffic to low orbit; and Phase III is to provide transportation to the Moon and Mars. He is not in this to just put up comsats more cheaply or to assist NASA in going around and around and around… he wants a space faring civilization.
The Kwajalein fault was wholly a process error and they have made changes to procedures to provide more human cross checking. They have added all the sensors in the health monitoring systems to the abort on alarm status rather than just the critical set. This will lead to more aborts for burned out lights and other false positive trivia but will give more reliability. They have modified some of the section where the tubing was messed up by the final test to make it less possible to bung something up. Ironically, it was the leak test check which caused the leak that caused the shutdown.
Everything worked well other than that. All other systems were 100%; trajectory was within .2 degrees of nominal; virtually all the systems except the upper stage got a good shakedown. Perhaps because of this, his sales are still expanding. They have 11 flights manifested already and because of that are already profitable.
He showed photos of the Falcon-9 testbed. That is one big mutha of a rocket.
Tom Evslin tells a story on Fractals of Change that illustrates exactly why we need to throw over our quaint, industrial-era notions of what constitutes work (aka labor, aka toil). Here’s his take on why a great programmer is worth fifty good ones:
I was consulting to a development manager at a tech company. He told me that the CEO, his boss, wouldn’t give him the salary and option freedom he needed to close a great programmer he’d found. Salary would have been 20% above what he had approval to offer; and, thanks to the new accounting standards for stock options, he didn’t have the authority to offer options. He lost the potential new hire and had to settle for someone merely “good”. Ironic thing is that he had several open positions so, once he gets through hiring several people, he’ll end up paying more in the aggregate than he would have paid for the superstar – and probably won’t get as much productivity.
Why do we persist in evaluating productivity as if the only model for productivity is the assembly line? In particular, creative work of any kind is anything but incremental; it is in fact inherently exponential. If Einstein could accomplish a civilization’s worth of ‘work’ in a single calendar year (1905, while he was ‘working,’ incidentally, as a patent examiner), why don’t we recognize the folly of measuring human endeavor by counting man hours?
‘Human resources’ is an unfortnuate misnomer, containing the implication that humans are to be mined or exploited like other natural resources. What humans are is entrepreneurs, wealth-creation machines designed to create capital. It is about time that companies with the means to ‘fund’ human effort figured this out. If more employees were treated like capitalists, the world would be a better place to work in.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Recent Comments