Posted 12/25/2003 01:40:00 AM by Jeff
DECEMBER GREETINGS -

1. Please select one of the following options:
Happy
Merry
Joyous
Feliz
Other _____________________

2. Please select one of the following options:
Christmas (December 25)
Hanukkah* (December 20-27)
Kwanzaa (December 26-January 1)
Boxing Day (December 26)
Yule (December 22)
Solstice (December 22)
Bill of Rights Day (December 15)
Navidad (25 Diciembre)
New Year (January 1)
Other _____________________
* Or substitute your own transliteration

3. Repeat as desired.

Posted 12/19/2003 03:45:00 AM by Jeff
X PRIZE SUCCESS - SpaceShipOne, built by Scaled Composites, on Wednesday became the first aircraft built entirely with private funds to break the sound barrier. Scaled Composites is the leading entrant vying for the X Prize, a $10 million award given to the first private organization to fly two suborbital space flights in the same spacecraft within a two week period.

While it's just a stepping-stone to Scaled's goal of flying in space, SpaceShipOne's flight is a rather significant accomplishment in its own regard. Aside from the just-retired Concorde (built by the British and French governments), supersonic aircraft have been primarily military jets. Now, it's been proven that even a relatively tiny company like Scaled can build a supersonic plane. With Concorde grounded, perhaps some enterprising company can step in and fill the void.

Certainly, a test vehicle like SpaceShipOne is a far cry from a production commercial aircraft. But the technological barriers, as Scaled has shown, are not that high. It's the psychological barriers that are holding things back.

Even if the X Prize is never claimed, as is expected to happen next year, the Prize will have done a great deal to help bring us into the age of affordable high-speed global travel. Not just space travel, but supersonic and hypersonic travel for the masses. I'm looking forward to the day when the most time consuming part of a U.S. cross-country flight is the drive to the airport.

Posted 12/16/2003 03:03:00 PM by Jeff
FIGHTING TO WIN - Orson Scott Card, a noted Science Fiction author, has an article at OpinionJournal titled, "The Campaign of Hate and Fear (Some of my fellow Democrats are unpatriotic.)" He says that people are dying because of the prevalent Democratic rhetoric, and if it wins out, many, many more will die. Something to think about.

(Note: I know, I haven't blogged for a very long time. There's no good reason for it.)

Posted 9/04/2003 02:25:00 AM by Jeff
WOO-HOO! - Earlier today, Glenn Reynolds posted an email I sent him about the population of California (the original item was dated yesterday, but my "update" was posted today). Then, Virginia Postrel gave me an unsolicited plug on her blog. Not only that, but a friend of mine pulled out his telescope tonight, and I got to see Mars as more than just a bright "star" in the sky. And as if that weren't enough, Amazon sent me an email today telling me that my copy of The Substance of Style is on its way.

Frankly, I haven't been having very many good days recently, and with this one-year anniversary looming, I'm happy to chain a few good things together for a change. So, to reiterate: woo-hoo!

Posted 8/30/2003 12:55:00 AM by Jeff
RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY - It's raining again. I'm not talking about "Darn, I have to get out my umbrella again" rain, I'm talking "Near zero visibility when you drive, even with the wipers on maximum, and God help you if you have to stop" rain. It's been like this for weeks. The other day, we had flash-flooding in my neighborhood, and it took me half an hour to find a street clear enough to drive through to get home. I've lived in this neighborhood for 15 years, and that's the first time I've seen that happen. I'm ready for it to stop, already.

Posted 8/15/2003 01:06:00 AM by Jeff
THE BLAME GAME - Slashdot has an item entitled Deregulation and Niagara Mohawk - Is There a Story? that asks about the role of deregulation in the recent blackout. The item contains links to articles that include the following quotes: "(The Niagara Mohawk power grid) is scheduled to request a rate hike," and "Deregulation [has] changed the laws and regulations governing the electricity industry...."

In the first case, if they have to request a rate hike from regulators, then they obviously haven't been deregulated, just differently regulated. In the second case, the quote explicitly says that the industry is still regulated--but the regulations have been "changed."

The concept of "deregulation" is a curious thing. It would seem reasonable to conclude that "deregulation" means that the regulations governing a company or industry are removed to force and allow the company or industry to compete under market rules. In practice, however, "deregulation" means no such thing. The way "deregulation" is almost always used (at implementation time, anyway) is to mean changing the way in which a company or industry is regulated. The so-called "deregulation" is usually implemented in a way that gives an immediate benefit the company involved (which is why they favor it), with at least lip service given to some form of "competition," although that competition is usually "managed" (i.e. tightly regulated). When a new regulation scheme thus implemented causes problems, then "deregulation" is blamed, with the connotation changed to mean "removing government controls," when the fact is that no such deregulation took place.

Posted 8/05/2003 07:12:00 PM by Jeff
SEA CHANGE IN SPACE - NASA today announced that they could launch the next space shuttle mission as early as March 11. By that time, human spaceflight looks to be quite a bit different than it is now. We could very well see three or four groups launching manned space missions before NASA manages to recover from its latest disaster.

There's the Russian launch of the next International Space Station crew, currently scheduled for October. But the Chinese government may also have a manned mission in October, the first ever by that country. And in a true sign of the changing state of space travel, the X Prize Foundation is saying that they expect a winner before the end of the year.

Since winning the X Prize involves the same spacecraft making two suborbital flights in two weeks, we could very well see several teams make attempts before the prize is claimed. And even after the prize is claimed, those teams which are working toward a commercially viable product will be pushing to get into space so their investments will pay off for themselves and their backers.

NASA hasn't proven very adaptable in its history, but it will have to adapt if it is to thrive in the new world of manned space travel. It's no longer even close to being the only game in town.

Posted 7/26/2003 04:16:00 AM by Jeff
ACRONYM OF THE DAY - The tech community tends to turn everything into an acronym. For example, Slashdot stories tend to include a disclaimer when they link to New York Times stories that say the NYT requires free registration. After a while, it became a parenthetical (Free Registration Required, yadda yadda yadda). Now, that has been reduced to (FRRYYY).

Posted 7/01/2003 08:49:00 PM by Jeff
WHY THE FANS VOTE - Why is it that so many sportswriters seem to think that baseball's All Star Game should be the All Who-has-the-best-statistics-in-the-first-half-of-the-season Game? Sure, the fans sometimes pick players past their prime, but there's no denying that player's picked this way are "stars," in the sense that they're well known and popular. Of course, individual fans often vote for their hometown players, but that tends to balance itself out, for the most part. Really, though, how can anyone seriously believe "Ichiro Suzuki didn't deserve to be in the starting three a month ago, but after a .400 June, he's worked his way in"? Ichiro is Ichiro, regardless of whether or not he's slumping in June.

Posted 6/26/2003 10:29:00 PM by Jeff
THE END OF THE WORLD - Virginia Postrel and Glenn Reynolds are on vacation.

Posted 6/24/2003 03:40:00 PM by Jeff
SPIKE, REVISITED - CNN is reporting that Spike Jones, Jr., son of the late Spike Jones, has filed a brief in the TNN lawsuit on TNN's side. See below for more on the Spike issue.

Posted 6/21/2003 06:50:00 AM by Jeff
AFTER BUFFY, PEANUTS - Virginia Postrel suggests that after Spike Lee is done suing TNN over their efforts to change their name to Spike TV, he may go after Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because it has a character named Spike. After that, perhaps he'll go after the comic strip Peanuts over Snoopy's brother, Spike.

UPDATE: And let's not forget Fonzie's nephew Spike from Happy Days.

ANOTHER UPDATE: How could I leave out Spike Jones?

Posted 5/13/2003 02:36:00 AM by Jeff
BUT DID HE PERJURE HIMSELF? - CNN.com is reporting that JFK had affair with 19-year-old intern. The allusion to Bill Clinton is obvious. There are two problems with that comparison. One, JFK did not lie under oath about it. And two, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentson, Clinton is no Jack Kennedy.

Posted 5/09/2003 01:04:00 PM by Jeff
FIRST AMENDMENT, WHAT FIRST AMENDMENT? - Brian Doherty at Reason has a good article on the follies of campaign finance reform. I think it's telling that the latest restrictions were passed in something called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. It's clearly bipartisan and not nonpartisan. It represents the two major parties conspiring to prop up the political duopoly that is our current electoral system. With all the attention pornography gets, people tend to forget that the First Amendment is ultimately and fundamentally about political speech--and that seems to be the least protected type of speech today.

Posted 5/01/2003 05:24:00 PM by Jeff
ANOTHER FIRST - There's no reason why this should be cool, but it is. George W. Bush became the first sitting president to make a tailhook landing on an aircraft carrier.

Posted 4/13/2003 02:44:00 PM by Jeff
HAPPY BIRTHDAY - Today is Thomas Jefferson's 260th birthday. Since Thomas Jefferson is my historical role model according to the quiz I link to below (and his picture is staring back at me from the same entry as I type this), it's appropriate that I make note of his birthday. I noted his birthday last year as well.

Posted 4/12/2003 01:31:00 PM by Jeff
INTERNATIONAL BASEBALL - A Canadian team started a Japanese pitcher against an American team in a Major League Baseball game played in Puerto Rico. It's not quite hockey or soccer, but baseball's got its own internationalization going on.

Posted 3/13/2003 05:24:00 PM by Jeff
SURPRISE! - InstaPundit linked to one of those online quiz things, and wouldn't you know it, I rated Libertarian. Imagine that!

Libertarian - You believe that the main use for
government is for some people to lord it over
others at their expense. You maintain that the
government should be as small as possible, and
that civil liberties, "victimless
crimes", and gun ownership should be basic
rights. You probably are OK with capitalism.
Your historical role model is Thomas Jefferson.


Which political sterotype are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Posted 3/09/2003 09:48:00 AM by Jeff
SADDAM HUSSEIN MEETS MONTY PYTHON - Here's an amazingly realistic take on the Iraqi disarmament negotiations, from VikingPundit (via rec.humor.funny).

Posted 3/07/2003 05:15:00 AM by Jeff
THE POLITICS OF THE COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION - At the first public hearing of the shuttle investigation board, the head of the Johnson Space Center said he's concerned that only 3,000 of the 10,000 space center workers are government employees. The article seems to imply that those figures are somehow surprising and haphazard, and not, as they were, a planned privatization effort. It also accepts as prima facie evidence that the presence of private workers compromised safety, the only question being if it was compromised too much. There's no allowance for private contractors being a neutral, or even positive, influence on safety. Sounds to me like uncritical reporting of sour grapes from government managers with an old axe to grind. Hopefully, the investigation board can rise above the petty political nonsense and focus on investigating the actual accident.

Posted 1/09/2003 11:17:00 AM by Jeff
THIS ISN'T A SITUATION COMEDY - Glenn Reynolds saw an episode of The Cosby Show on Nickelodeon ("Theo defies his parents, and they leave him with nowhere to live in order to teach him that actions have consequences, and forgiveness isn't to be taken for granted.") He drew a parallel to the situation in Korea. Sample quote:

We live in a world where most of our allies are Theo Huxtables: self-centered, unrealistic, and overconfident in their assorted schemes because they know Heathcliff will always bail them out in the end. But this isn't a situation comedy.

Near as I can tell, that approach doesn't work in real life.