The Daily Brief

James Lileks has, I think, the best obit I’ve seen today.

Think of it: we shot two rockets into orbit, and one of them – guided by men and an onboard computer that probably had less computational power than your cellphone – found the other, drew alongside, and flew in formation for a while. When I was a kid I was space-crazy (still am, really) but I always thought the Lunar Excursion Model was somewhat unlovable – those black empty eyes, those insect legs. The Gemini capsule was iconic, though, and Shirra was one of the men who drove it up and drove it down.

One by one they go, and we’re the lesser for their loss. There’s courage. And then there’s this.

When you can’t beat em, blockquote ’em. You’ll be missed, Wally Schirra.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

We took the boys to see a baseball game tonight; The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and the Dayton Dragons. It was C’s first baseball game and at seven he’s just old enough to make it through a full game without a lethal case of the fidgets. A is twelve and it’s been too long since we’ve been.

Minor league baseball – what a deal! The tickets are inexpensive, Fox Cities Stadium only has 5,000 seats so there really aren’t any bad seats in the house. My little guy leaned around the corner of the dugout, said ‘hi’ to Leury Bonilla who grinned a big ‘hi’ back and tossed him a baseball. A few innings later a perky usher asked him if was having a good time, found out this was his ‘first ever’ game and dug up a game ball with someone’s initials.

We even had a chance to boo the umpire …

In the ninth, Timber Rattler frustrations bubbled over. Dayton had runners at second and third with no out. The Wisconsin infielders were playing in on the grass to cut down the run at the plate. Justin Turner hit a grounder right to Bonilla at third base. Bonilla dove for the runner at third and appeared to have tagged him out. Base umpire Alex Diaz ruled the runner safe and Rattler manager Jim Horner sprinted out of the dugout to argue the call. After a brief, but heated argument Horner was ejected. Just before the next pitch was ready to be delivered, Diaz ejected Bonilla.

I have no idea why Bonilla was ejected. From where we were sitting he appeared to be just standing there then … bam he’s outta there.

All in all an excellent night – you almost don’t mind that the good guys lost by three runs.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The local schools have a good reputation and, by all accounts, are not so bad at the education biz. Why home school? Well ..

Inside the school, I felt the same cold grim feelings I had the last time I’d come here – even empty, the place bristles, somehow. A couple of students walked past, and I silently counted to see how long it would be take before someone deployed the Effenheimer, or the dreaded Mother Effenheimer. Three seconds. I’m not in favor of having nuns patrol with nail-studded two-by-fours, but on the other hand, I am. Or least some authority figure around which the Youts would feel compelled to display a civil tongue. I was talking with one of the neighbors at the bus stop; she’d been to the school last week, and one of the stuecadents hit on her.

My child is not going there.

This is why: because a school that excels academically, where the students are polite and well-mannered is becoming not, perhaps, a rarity but certainly a cause to pause and say “Will you look at that”.

The way it should be is becoming an exception. I can’t fight the tide but I can take my kids to high ground.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Constant Conflict
Ralph Peters

It is fashionable among world intellectual elites to decry “American culture,” with our domestic critics among the loudest in complaint. But traditional intellectual elites are of shrinking relevance, replaced by cognitive-practical elites–figures such as Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, or our most successful politicians–human beings who can recognize or create popular appetites, recreating themselves as necessary. Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures. While some other cultures, such as those of East Asia, appear strong enough to survive the onslaught by adaptive behaviors, most are not. The genius, the secret weapon, of American culture is the essence that the elites despise: ours is the first genuine people’s culture. It stresses comfort and convenience–ease–and it generates pleasure for the masses. We are Karl Marx’s dream, and his nightmare.

Secular and religious revolutionaries in our century have made the identical mistake, imagining that the workers of the world or the faithful just can’t wait to go home at night to study Marx or the Koran. Well, Joe Sixpack, Ivan Tipichni, and Ali Quat would rather “Baywatch.” America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine. There is no “peer competitor” in the cultural (or military) department. Our cultural empire has the addicted–men and women everywhere–clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment.

American culture is criticized for its impermanence, its “disposable” products. But therein lies its strength. All previous cultures sought ideal achievement which, once reached, might endure in static perfection. American culture is not about the end, but the means, the dynamic process that creates, destroys, and creates anew. If our works are transient, then so are life’s greatest gifts–passion, beauty, the quality of light on a winter afternoon, even life itself. American culture is alive.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Poor thinking – a result of, or cause of heroin addiction?

Morgan laughed in bitter agreement with that. He’s 42 and looks 72 – gaunt and toothless after a lifetime of heroin addiction. “They think you can take it or leave it, but it’s just the opposite. It takes you,” he said.

“It’s the biggest mistake in my life,” he went on. “If I got three wishes, I wouldn’t wish for a million dollars. It would be that I never tried heroin that first time.”

Not to belabor the obvious, Morgan, but you’ve got three wishes.

One for a million dollars.
Two that you’d never tried heroin the first time.
Three to wish for a tree house.

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Ka-BOOM.

A gasoline tanker crashed and burst into flames near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Sunday, creating such intense heat that a stretch of highway melted and collapsed.

Flames shot 200 feet in the air, but the truck’s driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns.

I predict with some confidence that when they say ‘walked away’ they mean ‘ran like the dickens’.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Google brings authors to Google Worldwide Headquarters for informal talks. Are they sharing? Is the Pope German?

We invite you to check out all the extraordinary people who’ve taken part in the Authors@Google program so far, and enjoy one of our videos today.

John Scalzi

Strobe Talbott

More.

I’ve still got a television but more and more I wonder when I’ll wake up and realize it’s been weeks .. or months .. since I’ve turned it on.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Assign piano keys values 0-9, start hard at PI to 1000 places and play. It’s got no rhythm by definition and you can’t dance to it but it is still pretty darn interesting.

Via
Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Stephen Hawking is going .. well not to orbit but he’s going to experience zero-g.

What a marvelous experience for a guy bound by gravity and circumstance to a chair. He may get to orbit yet – Sir Richard Branson is going to give him a seat on VirginGalactic.

I’m humbled that other people have framed this in a far more entertaining manner than I can manage – I won’t even try.

Space is to humans what Beethoven is to dogs. I don’t think we have the slightest idea what we don’t yet understand.

Just thought of something: What holds the paraplegic in their chairs? What keeps them from shooting around the room, stopping their progress with a finger, floating from desk to desk?

Gravity.

And gravity isn’t a big issue . . . where?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The first Carnival of Space is up. Huzzah!

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Hi. I’ve been reading this blog for a few years now. Lost track for a while, came back. Life happens.

When I read Timmer’s call this morning

Tired of there not being enough fresh content here every day? Can you write? Drop a line to Sgt Mom. She’ll hook you up.

I thought “why not“. So I did and she did and here we are. I am not so very sure that I can, in fact, write but we’ll give it the old college try.

I’m a husband, father, dog and cat owner. I live in Wisconsin, raised in Oklahoma. I spent eight years in the Marines but was a Lance Corporal for most of my time in service. I spent four years in the infantry but was only shot at once. I didn’t see the Fleet until I lateral moved to Data Processing.

I work for pay and health insurance for a mid-sized electronics manufacturer, about whom I won’t speak much. I work for pleasure and fun in the evenings for LiftPort about which I’ll go on at great length if you don’t shut me up. We want to build a space elevator. Yes it’s a long shot – it beats the snot out of not doing anything about the cost of getting to space.

So that’s me and thanks for reading. Y’all have no idea how tempting it was to go all 2004 on you, paste a picture of John Kerry saluting, title this ‘Reporting for Duty’ and call this introduction done.

Look in the dictionary under ‘sucking lemons’

and you’ll find this picture of Senator Harry Reid.

To be fair anyone can be made to look bad by publishing a photo taken at an innoprtune moment but .. still. Lemons.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

AA said in his del.icio.us notes on this post

“The self-referential nature of this border fence spawn all around the world is so intriguing in part because of the rapidity at which they are being proposed, built and contested.” One word for you – burbclaves.

Six words for AA: ‘Snow Crash’ was just a story.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.