We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area
– UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer.
Not often you see a remark quite like that.
(via Alec Muffet)
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July 14th, 2007 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Yes, I know what the actual charges filed against Black were, but there is an interesting article in the Guardian by former Telegraph editorial director Kim Fletcher called The wages of envy which raises some interesting points.
Given that the central charges failed, it does make me wonder if he was not in truth convicted of being unapologetic about being rich and being called Lord Black. Perhaps the verdict had as much to do with the jury selection process and where the prosecution chose to hold the trial than whatever Lord Black actually did or did not do. July 14th, 2007 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Things were ‘mostly quieter’ for me on May 28th, the Sunday of the conference. I had my one and only chance to run about the exhibitor areas to pick up flyers, buy shirts… and acquire a few DVD’s of sessions I really wanted to see but could not due to being in demand elsewhere. I briefly met Dr. Kistler of Rocketplane Kistler earlier but did not get a picture of him until he came by their exhibit for a photo op. I happened to be chatting with a friend who was manning their company table next to it so I joined the others. The hotel lighting in the public areas was rather problematic for my camera and few of the photos I took there were satisfactory. But hey, this is a really serious old school rocket scientist with a German accent.  Dr. Kistler, on the left, founded Kistler Aerospace. This merged with Chuck Laur’s company, Rocketplane, to become Rocketplane-Kistler. They have a contract from NASA for space station cargo delivery. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Late Sunday afternoon there was a demonstration which friends had told me about: Faster Than Light signal propagation. I am rather skeptical of such things but the demonstrator was a serious research physicist from Germany, I believe, so I had to go and see for myself. All I can say is, I think I saw FTL comms. Nothing practical in real life as the difficulty increases with distance. This rather negates the reason you would want it in the first place. But over a distance of about 3 meters the return signal with the ‘barriers’ in returned faster than it did with the barriers out (normal light speed) as shown on an OScope synced to the outgoing pulse. He could even modulate it. I will not go into detail here. You can look for yourself at the photos I took of his presentation. Look for photo numbers around dsc00616. I am still skeptical… but not quite as skeptical as before the demo.  Was it or wasn’t it? Demonstration of faster than light signal propagation. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Sunday night we had our closing banquet with Harrison Schmidt, the geologist who flew on Apollo 17 and one of the three Apollo guys at the conference. Actually this is not unusual as Harrison, Buzz and Rusty Schweikart are regulars and Buzz served as the Chairman of the Board through part of the nineties. Harrison has long been a promoter of human settlement and was given our O’Neill award in recognition of his efforts. Excuse the defect in the photo: I think the professional photographers flash went off just as I took this shot. She was standing right next to me.  Mark Hopkins bows in unworthiness before one of the last men to set foot on the moon. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved At the end of the banquet George Whitesides, NSS Executive Director, presented Carol Johnson and Ken Murphy with tokens of appreciation from the Society for their hard work. As the Chairman of the NSS Conferences Coordinating Committee I was sort of their ‘boss’ so I can publicly state they were a pleasure to work with over the last two and a half years, besides the fact that they ran a magnificent conference.  Yes, Ken really did wear a black hat. Carol got the roses since they would not have matched Ken’s je ne sais quoi… Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  And then we partied long into the night… Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  We crawled out of bed for the Society Town Hall Meeting… Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  And then, for the 26th time, it was over… Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved After the conference I spent a week in Dallas with an old friend. That will take us up to the beginning of June. So tomorrow: Aviation museums! Or I hope so. I take a train to NYC tomorrow, repack, fly out to Denver and on to Laramie on space business Monday. July 14th, 2007 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
Via Reason magazine’s Hit & Run blog, here is this rather amusing item about how French motorists with clean driving licences sell their speeding points online for a fee to drivers who are in danger of using up all their points and then getting banned. Yes, yes, I can see the usual Dudley Do-Rights out there bleating that this is all terribly naughty, a sign of decadence, blah, but in fact what this demonstrates, in a slightly naughty French way, is how if you oppress people enough with laws and taxes over a period of time, it breeds such disregard for the law that even laws that have sense – and driving very fast can be bloody dangerous – get spurned. (It appears the French are smarter at getting around certain rules – look at what happened to former Spurs, Manchester United and England player Teddy Sheringham for allegedly trying to pull the same speeding-point move). I have driven a few times along France’s magnificent, sweeping autoroutes, and am occasionally reminded that France invented Formula 1 motor racing. Maybe there’s plenty of life left in Gaul yet. If only they could do capitalism in a slightly more routine way. Talking of such alternative markets, here is an old article about the market in air miles. July 14th, 2007 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Conrad Black has been convicted of some of the charges that were directed against him. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case (my own view is that the whole case was bullshit and the jury convicted him because of envy of his ‘lavish lifestyle’) it underscores the old point that being a director of corporation is a very dangerous thing to be in the United States. Far more managers go to jail in the United States than in any other Western country (even as a percentage of the total). Perhaps the first Henry Ford had it right. After losing some civil cases against him by minority shareholders, he bought them out – every one of them. Only if owned 100% of the company could he feel secure against someone saying he was not doing right by the shareholders. As for the other shareholders, the campaign against Lord Black has cost them vastly more than his pay and perks ever did. Too late perhaps some of them now understand that he was the company and, without him, it was nothing. All the above should not be held to mean that I now accept Lord Black’s opinions. For example, I still do not agree with his opinion that FDR was a moderate man or a good President. However, it is possible that Sir Conrad may now revise his opinion of the person who did more than anyone else in the 20th century to help create the vastly powerful (almost arbitrary) American government that was directed against him. July 14th, 2007 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
There was much of interest in the program of the ISDC, but I missed seeing most of it and much of what I did see was covered at the time by Glenn Reynolds and Rand Simberg among others. As I have noted before, I am part of the National Space Society management so I see a very different face of the conference than most attendees. Much of my time there would be terribly unexciting to write about. I very much doubt a detailed discussion of the 2009 conference site selection meetings, presentations, politics and such would be of a great deal of interest. Today i will look at the May 26th evening of the conference via candid shots of the people and proceedings. There is more to the space movement than rocket science. Art and music also have a place. We have had Space Art shows at every ISDC I have attended, which is all but four.  We had a fine Space Art show, thanks to Teresa Patterson and Kaz. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved We have had everything from John Denver (speaking only) to a Space Improv Theater group. At the one I ran years ago, we even had a ballet dance interpretation of Zero G done to a live electronic music performance. As one would expect, there are often filkers lurking about ready to spice up a party with “Home, Home on Lagrange” or “Ron, Ron, Ron, Deuteron, Ron, Ron Ron”. I caught Rand Simberg, Glenn Reynolds and Alan Boyle chatting before the awards banquet on Saturday evening. Oh, and there was a former head of NASA Ames with us as well, just outside of the picture. I discovered he is a professional musician on the side so we hit it off quite well.  Why is it bloggers always seem to congregate in the bar? Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved The NSS annual award banquet is a big event for our community. We have several major awards: the Heinlein Award, a working model brass cannon on a hardwood base; the O’Neill award, a space colony replica; The Space Pioneer Awards, pewter lunar globes; and finally the Von Braun Award. The Heinlein and Von Braun alternate years. Both men were intimately involved with the founding branches of our society so this is a fitting way for NSS to honour extraordinary members of the space community.  Our Chairman of the Board of Directors (an Aussie), Kirby Ikin, bestows one of our highest honours upon Dr. Steve Squires of JPL. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Weeks before the event Mark Hopkins, one of our senior officers, asked if I could snap photos at the awards banquet. Even though there was a professional photographer, with equipment to die for also talking pictures in front of the podium, I did not realize I was being set up until my name was called…  Mark Hopkins bestows the NSS Exceptional Service Award upon a very surprised me. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved After the banquet came the receptions and a mobile party which finally settled in, with the tolerance of the hotel, in a 15th floor meeting area. This one lasted until dawn I believe, but I had to be up for the morning sessions so I only stayed until 3am. Or so.  Some of our people are very dedicated to getting off the planet. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Excuse the darkness but I preferred that to the loss of mood my flash causes. I loath flash shots and do them as little as I can. Perhaps someday I will own a camera that is fast enough to match my photgraphic tastes. Stabilization during long exposures would be nice… The party was brought to us by the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) with a bit of assistance from our expert speaker to hotel staff.  Serious partiers… check. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  Food… check.. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved  Alcohol… check. 6ft 4in Dallas conference chair in a white cowboy hat???… check. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved July 14th, 2007 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
They never give up. An article nicely slams attempts by UK neo-Malthusians to get us all frightened about the terrible idea of people wanting to have babies. Selfish, cruel to the Planet Earth, a drain on “resources”: you know the litany. Here’s an excerpt from the article, which I recommend:
Quite. The obsession with their being “too many” people (quite how anyone can work that out is a mystery) is something I find rather malevolent. In any event, as the writer quoted makes clear, it seems a bit weird for the population worriers to go on about supposedly high birthrates when in fact a lot of recent commentary – from the likes of Mark Steyn – has tended to suggest quite the opposite. Indeed, Steyn and others argue that the indigenous population of western Europe, or parts of it, is stagnating and birthrates have fallen below the replacement level (the level required to maintain a stable level). And of course, to enforce strict population controls, even if it makes any kind of sense (it does not) begs the question of how. Does it require China-style policies that lead to mass abortions and an imbalance between girls and boys? I ask these questions now because while watching the BBC television show this morning as I got ready for work, I saw some middle-aged, white-haired woman, a sort of genteel Rosa Klebb, arguing very emphatically against large families. The BBC hosts gave her only the most gentle of grillings. Sitting next to her on the couch was a black couple with 8 children (and very happy and relaxed they looked). The grey-haired lady made all kinds of claims that big families “put too much stress on the planet” and completely dismissed any idea that low population growth, or decline, was a problem. The issue of how to pay for an increasingly ageing workforce and the pressures on pension systems was also dismissed. In the end of the day, rational debate works only so far with these fanatics. Some of them look quite nice, they wear suits or woolly jumpers, but their demand for state power over the most intimate aspects of your life – having children and raising a family – is implacable. They haven’t gone away. July 13th, 2007 | 74 comments - (Comments are closed)
– Plato. The Republic. Thanks to Jackie for making me think of this. July 13th, 2007 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
After arriving in Manhattan on the Boston train, I had just enough time to repack and get perhaps three hours of sleep before heading for the airport. My May 24th NY-Houston-Dallas flight was early enough that I was able to attend the latter half of the Space Venture Forum morning track. I had loads of time to schmooze with potential customers, as well as listen to ‘the suits’ discuss venture funding, deal making, IPO’s and pitfalls. I am sure many here would have appreciated the slide which noted:
Glenn Reynolds also had a few things to say about how much real business has taken hold at the ISDC’s. It is definitely true. I went partially (and successfully) for business contacts for many years but this is the first year in which I represented a space venture. I may have been one of the persons quoted by Glenn and others and I spent one entire morning ‘under the lights’ as a talking head for someone’s documentary. I particularly enjoyed the lunch, partially because I finally met Esther Dyson whom I have known ‘virtually’ for over a decade. She introduced the speaker, Tom Pickens, son of the capitalist hero T. Boone Pickens. Tom is a man who learned business from childhood. He has a protein crystal product which can only be produced in quantities on orbit and which is highly valuable for medicine. His demand projections are such that told everyone in the room he can fill whatever they can launch or return.  Tom Pickens says “You’ve got 24 months to get a seat at the table”. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Now I could go on about all of the marvelous speakers and news events of the conference, or talk about all of the meetings I ran or attended… but instead I will show some of the fun side of the first few days of the conference. While I was chatting with some old friends, someone commented that our Executive Committee Chairman, Gary Barnhard, bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Gerard O’Neill, the inventor of the L5 Space Colony concept, who died around 15 years ago.  Gary Barnhard attempts to channel Dr. O’Neill. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Armadillo Aerospace brought ‘Pixel’, one of the Moon Lander Prize contenders, to the exhibit room. It was quite a center piece of a reception for rocket scientists and activists. It reminds you why you are here, even after quite a few bottles. It is amazing how difficult it is to talk, hold your bottle and enjoy the nacho dip at the same time.  No we did not tap the fuel tanks when the cash bar closed. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Glenn Reynolds. Rand Simberg and I have known each other for over 20 years so of course we had to get together to discuss blogging and how to fix everything. We were also joined for awhile by Alan Boyle of MSNBC.  What do you mean, “we drank it all?” Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved I was surprised to see a native Texas gal I’d not seen in a few years. Turned out Kaz had been in London while with the USAF.  The world of rocket scientists has been improving steadily, Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved I caught Glenn Reynolds in mid post just before the Space Blogger summit at the conference.  The blogfather at work plotting world domination, Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved This brings me up to May 26th. I will try to post on the rest of ISDC 2007 tomorrow. If you can not wait, you will find hundreds of photos of the event in the archives. July 12th, 2007 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Economist posted an article about Zimbabwe this week reporting that Zimbabwe is ‘at the end of its tether’, with the news that the vile regime of Robert Mugabe has introduced price fixing as a means of legislating away the rampant inflation that has left Zimbabwe banknotes worth less then toilet paper.
Some have expressed the hope that the oncoming economic collapse might presage a political upheaval that will remove Mugabe and restore a democratic government in Zimbabwe. There is no doubt that there is a great upswelling of discontent in the country. It has few friends internationally and those are of dubious repute. But there is faint hope to expect the end of the regime as long as Mugabe has the strength to kill his domestic enemies and hang on to power. There is the dreadful example of Communist Kampuchea as an example of how low a country can go before it becomes extinct. Things in Zimbabwe are going to get much, much worse. July 12th, 2007 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Commission for Racial Equality in the UK has taken on a decidedly sinister tone by calling for a Tintin book, Tintin in the Congo, to be removed from sale because it is racist.
I am pleased to say Borders’ reply was a polite NO:
Choice? CHOICE? That will never do! Clearly we need some more laws! The fact is, Tintin is racist. So what? It is a very good illustration of the attitudes of the era in which these stories were written (Tintin in the Congo was published in 1930), which was during the Indian summer of colonialism (with apologies to the people of Tibet still under Chinese colonial occupation circa 2007). I personally find books glorifying socialism hideous as history has proven again and again that socialism is repression and its end state is mass murder and horror. Maybe I should demand Borders stop selling those. Better yet, maybe books shops should not sell anything that offends anyone, which should limit them to selling phone books in all likelihood. You can get your very own copy of Tintin in the Congo here (UK) or here (US) (I notice that Amazon in the USA wimped out and did not show the cover illustration). July 12th, 2007 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
The first leg of my journey began on May 17th with a Belfast to Manhattan direct flight. I had a one day layover before another early morning start for a train to Boston. This gig, the JPMorgan Technology ’07 Conference, was one of my big ones of the year. I worked as a backstage Tech on this investor conference from May 19th to the 23rd. For those not in the heart of the tech game, these conferences are important events. Hundreds of millions exchange hands based on the information released by CEO’s and CFO’s and in back room wheeling and dealing. That’s why I get paid well to travel a long distance just to be a webcast editor. They cannot afford failure, and if things do go wrong they want people who are overskilled enough to not panic and to solve the problem. Our glorious leader tried to foresee the unforseeable or at the very least make sure everyone knew what they had to do.  Behind the scenes: a pre-show Tech briefing. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved Despite all the prep and redundancy and effort… gremlins will have their day. Just as the lights came up during an early Monday morning session… the entire hotel blacked out. Lighting boards. Sound boards. Television cameras. The video mixing desk. Registration servers. Video projectors. Streaming servers… and of course the Editing stations of my demesne. All hell broke loose… but in less than 15 minutes the hotel power problem was found, circuits repatched and every team had their gear synced up and back on the air. That’s how the pro’s do it.  No expense is spared. Well, almost…anyone got a match? A spare nuclear power plant? Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved I did not get to see much of the show unless you count occasionally looking over my shoulder and watching it in reverse.  My view of the show. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved The hours are long but there are perks working a job like this. For one, I get a very nice free room, and these things are not held in one star squats. As you can see, I had a lovely view of the harbour. I also had a panorama of the Charles River and the Boston skyline. To top it off, the team is one of the best I have ever worked with. ‘The craic is mighty’ as one might hear in Belfast.  Some perks come with the job: a view of Boston Harbour from my room. Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved On the last day I rushed to finish my Editing tasks in time to strike my gear and flag a taxi to the railway station. I had a flight out of JFK to catch at 0500 and I left Boston only twelve hours earlier. The train takes a very scenic coastal route. I highly recommend the Boston to New York train for that and as a way to not go through the indignities of airport security.  There are a lot of boats on the New England coast… Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved July 11th, 2007 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
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