Personal Blog

40 Years after Apollo 11: This brings us to now... 2009-08-02 07:15PM

So, I've already talked about how we're kind of screwed in terms of space exploration, some of the political considerations, launch costs, and some potential things to do in space. If you ask a person on the street how much money we spend on NASA, they'll give you a huge number, generally between ten and fifteen percent of the federal budget. However, the reality is that we spend far less than one percent of the budget on space exploration...

Space based solar power: Eliminating the need for power transfer 2009-08-01 08:01PM

I tend to believe that the true usefulness of exploration doesn't become apparent until much later. Consider that the Europeans came to America to find India and access one set of resources... but ended up colonizing America instead. On the other hand, to justify any big project, you need something palatable to draw people's attention. One popular reason to build space infrastructure, besides the simple need for exploration, has been solar power. Such systems usually involve the construction of large solar arrays and microwave transmitters to beam the power to earth. I would like to propose an simpler alternative...

40 Years After Apollo 11: The use of the Moon 2009-07-31 01:06AM

Helium 3 on the moon is very much like spices in the New World. If it provides a decent justification to get there, you might forgive that we're heading in a potentially wrong direction...

40 Years After Apollo 11: A few things we really don't know about space but ought to 2009-07-26 01:14AM

There are a few things about space travel and science that it bugs the heck out of me that we don't know...

40 Years after Apollo 11: The problem with blindly going on to mars 2009-07-24 11:28PM

Mars has been on the books as the next step after the moon for a long time. Some people think that our next step towards space needs to center around going to Mars. I'm going to write about why this may not be the great idea you think it is...

40 Years after Apollo 11: What to do in space? 2009-07-24 01:01AM

There are a lot of things that can be done in space. The problem is, we really don't know what's really useful to do up there. People came to America to hunt for gold, but that's not a big part of the modern economy. They came here to find spices and other goods from Asia but found a new continent instead...

40 Years after Apollo 11: The giant elephant in the room 2009-07-23 12:52AM

We like to talk about the big reason why we don't have much of a presence in space as being political will or the lack of a cold war or even things like not having anything especially important to do. I don't believe it. The real giant elephant in the room, that nobody likes to talk about, is the cost of getting up to space...

The state of the space program, 40 years after Apollo 11 2009-07-17 10:30AM

We are in the final years of the space shuttle program. Potentially, we're quite close to the end of our space program, as we know it.

Geeklust for SGIs 2009-06-22 11:53AM

One of my co-workers was wondering why our monitoring system was alerting about a stock. Turns out, it was just Nortel, who is in the process of disappearing. And I taunted her and reduced her to tears about all of the cool tech companies that are no more, like SGI.

Hot 2009-05-17 06:45PM

Today I'm going to blog about being hot. Oh, and no, not the hot as in "If you look at my pictures from last Bike To Work Day, you will realize that I've lost fat all over my body and now my belly is small enough that it doesn't roll down the top of my bike shorts" sort of hot. Although that is nice too...

Wrong Layer 2009-05-08 11:20AM

The helicopter was funky...

The official version of the shoe story 2009-04-29 12:16PM

Let's go back to around 1990, when I was in the midst grade school. Michael Jordan and the Bulls were rocking. Girls were wearing stirrup pants. Jean jackets were in. Hair metal was petering out but Grunge hadn't hit yet. I was living in Milford, Ohio, which was a suburb where upper-middle-class urban professionals and lower-class workers mingled...

It's not hard to knock out all communications to an area, I guess 2009-04-09 04:02PM

So this morning, I was wondering why my cellphone was acting a little funny. It turns out that somebody got into a fiber optic cable vault and cut four very important fiber lines that contain a lion's share of the network connectivity over the bay area.

On things changing without me really recognizing it 2009-04-08 11:36AM

It's actually fairly weird to be in the shape I'm in. See, I'm still pudgy in spots. I don't look like a fighter jet made of biceps. But I can ride for miles and miles and I can get myself going fast...

When does a habit become lifelong? 2009-04-07 12:23PM

I know what's going to happen if I stop. The fattest I've ever been was the winter after my bike got stolen. I felt horribly meh that winter...

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