Vacation in Space - sooner than you think

NASA is finally getting the competition it needs to ensure that the exploration & commercialization of space continues.

Bigelow's Second Orbital Module Launches Into Space - Yahoo! News:
"A privately-built space station prototype launched into orbit atop a Dnepr rocket Thursday from a Russian missile base, SPACE.com has learned. The space shot kicks off the second test flight for the U.S. firm Bigelow Aerospace.

Genesis 2, an inflatable module laden with cameras, personal items and a Space Bingo game, rocketed spaceward from a silo at Yasny Launch Base, an active Russian strategic missile base in the country's Orenburg region.

The spacecraft is a near-twin of Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis 1 module, which launched in July 2006 and remains operational today, but carries a series of enhancements and additional cargo, the Las Vegas, Nevada-based spaceflight firm has said. Both spacecraft are prototypes for future commercial orbital complexes that Bigelow Aerospace, and its founder and president Robert Bigelow, hope to offer for use by private firms and national space agencies."

Instead of launching hard structures that resemble earth's buildings, Bigelow uses structures that take advantage of the unique environment in space. They send up a small package and inflate it. This approach may well be the key to building large structures (like hotels) before we have large scale mining & materials production facilities in space.

By using a Russian launch vehicle, they also help keep alive another competitor to our government's space program. Hopefully, they will soon have cost effective commercial choices for launch services.

Is this why political discussions become bitter arguments?

It seems to me that during my lifetime, much of American society has lost the ability to discuss controversial issues without getting highly emotional and storming off in a huff. This article presents some ideas on why that might be.

American Thinker Blog: Free speech is unfair to losers:
"James Lewis
Several of my liberal friends have a funny conversational tic: Whenever the talk wanders into certain topics, they abruptly switch off --- change the subject, or urgently go off to do something else. We're friends, so I never try to push them back to that dangerous little 'Eeeek!' moment. But it's just as if they have a little thermometer in their heads, and when things get dangerous, the red line goes way up and all that mercury threatens to squirt out of the top. You can practically see it happening right in front of your eyes.

That's what Sigmund Freud called 'signal anxiety' --- or mentally going 'Eeeek!' --- there's danger up ahead! Don't let your thoughts run that way! Because, of course, liberals are horribly afraid that they might be wrong --- about abortion, or the war, or whatever secret doubts they harbor in their hearts. It's why they have to shout so loud to drown out other voices.

All that is tremendously ironic. The Left has controlled the media at least since the 1970s, and actually even back to the 1930s. As a result of their monopoly they have lost the ability to compete intellectually --- to persuade by logic and evidence. Instead, they think that just stating their often bizarre and simply false opinions is good enough. But it's not. It is the conservatives who have been forced to think hard, to justify their ideas over and over again. Practice makes perfect, and many (not all!) conservatives have now become very skilled in stating their case to the American public. Liberals are thrown back on using personal insults, because they no longer know how to state their case; and they are afraid to think freely, for fear they might have to change their minds.

When people become afraid of following a thought to its logical conclusion, they can no longer think.

Free speech is unfair to intellectual losers. That's why the "Fairness Doctrine" is raising its Medusa head again. Liberals want government-enforced equality because genuine intellectual opposition scares them. Quick, turn on NPR! (Phew, that was a close one!)

The fear of free speech is the fear of skepticism. All stagnant orthodoxies fear doubters, just as Pope Leo xxx feared Galileo, --- who was a feeble old man when he was sentenced to compulsory silence. It's interesting that the censorious Pope was a close friend of Galileo, and he may have privately agreed with him. But as Pope, he protected the Church of Rome by silencing the greatest scientist of the age. The Church has paid the price for its censorship ever since."

Emphasis added.

Random Numbers in Banks & iPods

It is sometimes interesting to see how much thought has gone into a seemingly simple feature in an everyday device - like the ability to shuffle songs on a CD or MP3 player.

The Numbers Guy - WSJ.com:
"Earlier this week, Mads Haahr ordered a customized iPod with 'God Plays Dice' engraved on its back. Mr. Haahr -- a random-number enthusiast, lecturer in computer science at Trinity College in Dublin and keeper of the Web site Random.org, a popular source of random numbers -- intends to answer a question that has long bedeviled users of Apple's popular music player: Does the shuffle function really play users' songs in random order?

Since Apple Computer Inc. added the shuffle function to the main menu of iPods two years ago, the question has been raised by the New York Times and Newsweek; debated on Slashdot and other Web sites; and inspired a regular feature in the Onion.

... strategies, which must detect and analyze natural processes, serve up numbers too slowly for high-volume consumers of randomness. Banks, casinos and others generally must rely on computer algorithms, meaning they're on the hunt for programs that can best mimic true randomness"

We hope that banks need random numbers for their encryption algorithms and not to compute balances ...

Supreme Court takes away some freedom of speech

Top US court rules against 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus':
"The US Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a school that suspended a student for brandishing a banner proclaiming 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus,' in one of the more bizarre recent free-speech cases.
. . . in a five-three decision, the Supreme Court found that schools 'may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use.'
. . .
Frederick was 18 when he displayed his huge banner just outside the school grounds at Juneau, Alaska in front of television cameras as the Olympic flame passed in front of a crowd.

Principal Deborah Morse was not amused by Frederick's linkage between Jesus and a bong, a pipe used to smoke marijuana. She took away the banner and suspended Frederick from school for 10 days.

Frederick took his case to court, arguing that his free-speech rights, protected under the First Amendment, had been violated, and demanding damages from Morse."

This one surprises me - they're saying that the freedom of speech of an adult standing off of school grounds can be infringed because they happen to attend the school. This stupid banner was intended as a joke, but got treated much more seriously.

Supreme Court gives back a little freedom of speech

Court allows issue ads near elections - Yahoo! News:
"The Supreme Court loosened restrictions Monday on corporate- and union-funded television ads that air close to elections, weakening a key provision of a landmark campaign finance law.

The court, split 5-4, upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections. The law unreasonably limits speech and violates the group's First Amendment rights, the court said. "

This some of the legacy of the McCain Feingold law that limits our political speech 60 days before an election (in other words before people start paying attention . . .) - one of the reasons I'm not likely to vote for him in any future elections.

Freedom of Speech isn't Easy

Here in the US we generally practice advanced liberty with regard to freedom of speech (except in schools & colleges). In other parts of the world, our example isn't taking hold - in fact some ground is being lost ...

Pajamas Media: Free Speech Is No Offense:

"Unfortunately, too many people do not understand the serious consequences of misplaced respect for offended religious feelings. A prime example – the United Nation’s Human Rights Council’s passage of a scandalous resolution condoning state punishment of speech deemed insulting to religion, which helps regimes that silence criticism and crush dissent."

“The only right you don’t have in a democracy is the right not to be offended.”

Here’s what Mohammed ljaz ul-Haq, the religious affairs minister of Pakistan -our ally in the war on terror- had to say about Sir Salman’s knighthood: “If someone blows himself up he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West?”
. . .
The late president’s son was later forced to soften his attack on Rushdie, but his line of “reasoning” exposes the problem in a nutshell: he is absolutely sure that blasphemy and terrorism are comparable crimes. And he can find many arguments for this perverted logic in the reactions among people in the West to the fatwa against Rushdie after the publication of “The Satanic Verses” in 1988, which was denounced blasphemous for its depiction of the prophet Mohammed.

. . . the Labour Government in Britain was delivering ammunition to this kind of policy when back in 2006 it put a lot of effort into passing a law against religious hatred. It failed by one vote. Salman Rushdie fought this law. In an essay “Coming After Us” for the anthology “Free Expression Is No Offense” he wrote:

“I never thought of myself as a writer about religion until religion came after me… At that time it was often difficult to persuade people that the attack on The Satanic Verses was part of a broader, global assault on writers, artists, and fundamental freedoms. The aggressors in that matter, by which I mean the novel’s opponents, who threatened booksellers and publishers, falsified the contents of the text they disliked, and vilified its author, nevertheless presented themselves as the injured parties, and such was the desire to appease religious sentiment even then that in spite of the murder of a translator in Japan and the shooting of a publisher in Norway there was widespread acceptance of that topsy-turvy view.”

This is in reaction to Queen Elizabeth knighting Salman Rushdie.

Most young people in the western world have never heard of him and don't know what the fuss is about, but it seems Muslim fanatics never forget.

Islam has accumulated 700+ years of grievances against us - we should be careful about giving away our rights to pacify them - it won't work.

Honoring Britain's Veterans of the Falklands War - 25 years ago

Scroll down in the text of this article to see some good photographs of the British military on parade and some pictures of Margaret Thatcher & Tony Blair greeting veterans along with princes Charles & Andrew.

TigerHawk: "The spring of 1982 was a barren time for the West. The capitalist economy was in a shambles, the Soviet Union was resurgent, America had not yet recovered from the indignities of the Ford and Carter years, and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had not yet established themselves as the great leaders we now know they were. The Falklands War was therefore quite possibly the most essentially rejuvenating foreign policy moment between Israel's recovery of its hostages in Uganda in 1976 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Finally the West had stood up to a tin-pot dictator and given him his comeupance."

Several years ago I was in Buenos Aires while the Argentines were putting the finishing touches on their memorial to the same war. They also honor their veterans, and obviously view this conflict differently. We didn't get to know the locals well enough to discuss politics, but I got the impression that most people thought it was unimportant old news.

IBM patents external memory technology

I don't want to rain on their parade, but this seems to be a pretty unlikely product. As the cost of RAM approaches the cost of the plastic & sand (silicon) required to manufacture it, sharing such cheap components seems unlikely.

TG Daily - IBM patents external DRAM box:
"IBM is pitching the invention as a technology that could provide a cheaper and more flexible way to temporarily upgrade the available memory in computing systems ranging from PDAs to servers. According to the description of the patent, the technology includes three separate parts - a connector, a container to hold RAM as well as a cable that couples the connector to the container.

IBM says that the connector can be inserted into a DRAM slot just like a common memory module, allowing the memory installed in the external box to be addressed by the motherboard as another bank or DRAM. When there is no external RAM module plugged in, no memory is recognized by the motherboard's memory addressing unit, the patent claims."

IBM's people create more patents annually than any other company in this industry (perhaps any industry), and they have more patents inside your PC than any other company. Perhaps someone sees an opportunity here that I'm missing. Certainly if people start replacing hard drives with RAM, then they would use much more of it . . .

Tips I could have used before graduation night ...

I ended up with pretty blurry photos of a graduation ceremony (low light & long lenses aren't very compatible) - some of these tips would have helped, but my faithful mono-pod (a tripod with only 1 leg) would have been even better.
instructables : How to take AWESOME night photos WITHOUT a tripod:

"This instructable will teach you how to use the normal digital camera you already own to take night photos that are not blurry, and without a tripod. "

D Day - June 6th, 1944

American Thinker Blog: D Day plus 63 years:
Thanks to American Thinker for these links to D-Day history:

"Here are links to information about the D-Day contributions of the Army, Army Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard.

http://www.worldwar2history.info/

http://www.d-daymuseum.org/education/factsheets_history.html

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq109-1.htm

http://www.aero-web.org/history/wwii/d-day/toc.htm

http://www.uscg.mil/history/h_normandy.html

http://www.uscg.mil/history/Normandy_Index.html
"

"for evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing"

American Thinker: Boycotting Decency:
I try to keep up on events in my homeland England and also in Europe - this article makes it clear that these are places I could no longer live ...

"the British college teachers union just voted to boycott Israel's universities and colleges.

Why would England, home of the 'Mother of Parliaments,' support the destruction of a small and besieged country that has managed to maintain the only true democracy in the most treacherous neighborhood in the world? Why would professors and teachers, who are presumably dedicated to free speech and thought, be opposed to the free exchange of information with such a democracy?

Ten years ago Europe was appalled over ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Today the British vote to open the door to ethnic cleansing in Israel. "

It has always surprised me that college professors are blind to the fact that their lifestyle is supported by the freedoms they so often attack. Apparently, they've learned nothing from the history they dispense and equate life under Pol Pot as equivalent to, or better than, life under Churchill or Reagan.

"The boycott move shows the powerful return of the anti-democratic Left in Britain, very similar to the Stalinist Left that did so much damage to Britain and the West in the 20th century. It also shows the new power in British academic institutions of Islamic fascists. A major fact is that the same UCU board that voted to deligitimize Israel also voted to block police inquiries about Islamist recruiting on university campuses. The message is clear. The academic Left will protect Islamofascists on campus."

Simple self survival ought to discourage the growth of fascism & terrorism in our midst, but apparently the allure of Political Correctness is more powerful than the realities of their own lives.

"Viciously slandering Israel and of course the United States has become socially acceptable in Europe today, and Britain is no exception. Both of those hatreds are very selective: no such superhuman standards of moral conduct are applied to Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, or Zimbabwe, or France for that matter. Politically Correct intimidation governs British society, which is as frightening in its own way as Cromwell's witch-hunts four centuries ago. The spirit of the witch-hunt is alive today, and Britain's academics, and for that matter Britain's Jews, seem to be frozen in fear. Given the dark history of Europe this is another throwback to a mad past."

Perhaps Dark Ages & Inquisitions are part of the natural cycle of life in Europe - I will attempt to live where I'm a member of the audience, not a a participant.