Courtesy Ma Bell:
[youtube IcyBBSZJURk]
Apr 032014
Apr 032014
XCOR Aerospace Announces Brian Binnie as Newest Test Pilot
What makes this “Huh”-worthy is that Bran Binnie flew SpaceShipOne back in the day. You woulda thought he’d’ve been onboard for SpaceShipTwo, but he’s signed on with XCOR instead.
I have heard *rumors* to the effect that SS2 has been having difficulties with their hybrid rocket motor. Given that XCOR is a rocket engine company, I would imagine their propulsion system does what it’s supposed to.
Apr 022014
Boeing artwork from December 1963 depicting the Model 733-197 swing-wing SST. Noteworthy is the resemblance to the later Rockwell B-1 bomber, except with less blending and separately podded engines.
Apr 022014
Venezuela issues ID cards to curtail food hoarding
Venezuela’s collectivist economic reforms have been so glitteringly successful that they are introducing fingerprint-based registrations and rationing cards to keep people from stocking up. Because what do you really need a fully automatic steak for? Anyone buying a full bunch of bananas is clearly compensating for something, if you know what I mean.Nobody really needs to buy more than one apple a day. Any more than that and you must be some sort of food-nut.
Apr 022014
A complaint common enough to now be boring is that children these days are so dominated by safety-obsessed parents and schools that they face no risks. often this leads to the observation that this leads to a dull childhood, but probably more important, it leads to a lack of ability to handle adversity when it inevitably comes. Here are two news stories that come at this topic from different directions:
When one New Zealand school tossed its playground rules and let students risk injury, the results were surprising
Fewer children were getting hurt on the playground. Students focused better in class. There was also less bullying, less tattling. Incidents of vandalism had dropped off.
Shocking. Sentient creatures turn out to be able to administer a smidgeon of self-control. Who woulda guessed.
And the other news story deals with a middle school in Connecticut. Now, I don’t know for sure that this is one of those safety-Nazi dominated facilities, but the chances seem pretty good.
School Warns Parents About ‘Eraser Challenge’ Game That Has Students Harming Themselves
Short form: the kids invented a very basic “game” that involves rubbing the skin off their arms with pencil erasers and comparing the damage, presumably for bragging rights. principal and parents duly freak out.
When you take away the *fun* ways for kids to hurt themselves, they’ll invent stupid ways to do it. But they will hurt themselves. That’s what kids do. That’s what kids *should* do. Teaches ’em not only how to handle pain, it also teaches them a sense of proportion. But only when the pain and damage are produced via something that makes some measure of sense, like falling out of a tree. Ten years down the line, when Junior is trying to get an office job, the faint scars from when he broke his arm racing in the soapbox derby won’t stand against him. But the scar that spells out “FART” on his arm from when he scarified himself with an eraser? That might be problematic.
Apr 012014
It’s April 1st. AKA “April Fools Day,” a day notable for bad jokes and hoaxes (such as “A Necro-Biological Explanation for the Fermi Paradox,” a reasonable facsimile of a dry scientific paper, posted on Arxiv.org, which attributes the silence of the universe to a near universal zombie epidemic). The problem is, “real news” happens on April 1s, just like any other day. and while most news stories are clearly not April 1st gags, some are real hard to tell if they are hoaxes… or signs that some people are really, really messed up. Like this one:
What Can Educators do to End White Supremacy in the Classroom?
This, sadly, appears to be entirely on the up-and-up, just bad timing. It describes the 15th annual “National White Privilege Conference” held in Madison, Wisconsin. What was discussed there is *entirely* insane. Just utter racist rubbish, of the worst self-hating variety.
One of the “educators” featured in the story is gettign her PhD in “Critical whiteness studies,” something I’ve never heard of before. So, I looked it up on wikipedia. And what I learned is this:
“Black studies” are taught by black folk to explain how great black folk are.
“Chicano/hispanic studies” are taught by chicano/hispanic folk to explain how great chicano/hispanic folk are.
“Womens studies” are taught by women to explain how great women are.
“White studies” are taught by black folk to explain how terrible white folk are.
Buh?
Throw in a lot of gibberish about “privilege,” a whole lot of anti-white race-baiting, a heaping helping of psychobabble and a dumptruck full of socialist/Marxist bullcrap, and you have “critical whiteness studies.”
Gah.
I’m starting to come around to the thinking of many of those on the far left, that views that they don’t agree with should be banned or made illegal. In my case, I’m about to call for a petition to the White House demanding a moratorium on “liberal arts” being taught in universities for a generation or two. Higher ed should be restricted to the likes of physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science, medicine, that sort of thing: STEM. And lay off the BS curricula long enough for the current practitioners to just simply *die.*