I’ve been dreaming of space since I was a little kid. I’m an avid science fiction fan, and like most kids of my generation I grew up immersed in Star Wars and the attendant fantasies of galactic exploration. Given this it may be a surprise to hear that I am not a fan of the recently announced Mars initiatives. I recognize to some extent the power of a dream and the positive effects the moon landings had on our culture. I don’t think you can pull the same trick twice though. While landing men on Mars would be an amazing achievement, it’s not going to have the same impact that the original moon landings did. Our interests would be better served continuing to use robotic missions to explore the solar system.

I do agree with the need to retire the shuttle fleet and move to a new launch vehicle however, and getting a permanent colony started on the moon is a fantastic idea. Not as a stepping stone to Mars mind you, but to the asteroid belt, where (supposedly) the real treasure is to be found.

Like most critics of the Bush Junta I am suscpicious that this is all really just about military expansion though. Who else can get launch vehicles onto the moon and start a moon base? Who could challenge the authority of a power that could drop an asteroid on you from space with absolute impunity, and knock your communications system out of the sky should you cross us? I’m sure from the Neocon perspective this sort of move makes perfect sense. I suspect like with the WMD/al qaeda = iraq misconceptions the American public holds, this will remain almost completely off everyone’s radar until its become a fait accompli. Assuming my cynical paranoia pans out that is, and assuming congress agrees to fund this, which at this point actually seems fairly unlikely.

Yesterday I post about oil depletion and the possibility of a mad max scenario. Today They’re talking about the end of the world on metafilter. Coincidence or conspiracy – you decide.

(but either way I feel less like a looney for bringing this stuff up. See, I’m not the only one! 😉

A week or so ago I posted a link to a site covering the peak oil production situation, how we were likely to hit it in the next couple of years, and the consequences of the ‘post peak’ energy economy. The site was thought provoking but its almost hysterical prognosis seemed like it came right out of Mad Max. If you had a hard time sorting out what might be true from the ‘the apocalypse is coming’ rhetoric on that site, you might find it easier to review this article from the economist for a more sober but no less chilling account of where we’re at with oil reserves and what might come after we pass peak production. I don’t know what to conclude from all this. On the one hand I’m an optimist and history is replete with examples of market forces and our ingenuity overcoming adversity. On the other hand oil is so profoundly linked with modern civilization and the rise of the industrial age that it’s hard to imagine how we’ll get past this. It’s not simply a matter of generating our electricity using alternative means (nuclear, solar, whatever)..oil is touching every aspect of our world, from the materials that make up the keyboard I’m typing on to the fertilizers that feed the almond trees to the fuel that powers the distribution network that brings them to me.

I’m going to continue to ruminate on this one. If you run across any interesting links covering the issue I’d like to see them. It’s funny, in my late teens I became obsessed with these issues – when I was in my early 20’s I had already run across some of the materials suggesting an end to the oil age. Somehow over time my concerns faded. I’m glad the issue has filtered back onto my radar though.

…and japanese tax dollars at work. wouldn’t you have loved to work on that experiment? Spend a few months on waveform research rolling pingpong balls down a ski jump ramp, great work if you can find it.

AOL is offering a promotional deal through the end of February where for 99 cents you can download movies and watch them on your local machine. This is the first pricing model for digital distribution I’ve seen that actually works for me – I would pay 99 cents to in effect rent a movie in the comfort of my own home. The restrictions – you only get to ‘keep’ it for 30 days and once you start watching the film you have only 24 hours to finish watching it – seem reasonable to me, and hackers will end up breaking the DRM anyway so if the restrictions bother you I’m sure it will end up being possible to bypass them. Too bad this is a limited time deal – if someone moves to a model like this I might actually return to the practice of ‘renting’ movies again.

Oh…you can read up on the details of the deal over on arstechnica

..comes this life-sized replica of Han Solo frozen in Carbonite, rendered in Lego. Impressive, there’s no doubt. Things like this make me less self conscious of my own odd hobbies and interests.

If you spend a little time digging around on Medscape’s site, you’ll discover what seems to be an overwhelming body of medical research that suggests the high sugar/high calorie diet that’s common in the western countries is a significant contributer to increasing health risks related to obesity and heart disease. Given this, why do you suppose the Bush administration has chosen to oppose the World Health Organization’s plan to fight back against the rising tide of obesity by helping people understand the negative health consequences of inappropriate consumption of soft drinks and junk food? Cynical person that I am, my conclusion is that the Bush Junta is more concerned with campaign contributions from big agribusiness and the food conglomerates than it is with the health of U.S. citizens. Of course with this issue like so many others, it seems like the mainstream media will ignore it and the general public will remain blissfully unaware. Spread the word says I, this represents my latest 2 bits 😉

The Inquirer has an article with details on how easy it is to falsify the feedback and other profile information on ebay. This is a serious issue if you use ebay regularly, until they fix this it means you can’t trust the feedback profile on the item page, you need to click through to the seller’s feedback page, and you need to not use internet explorer when you’re doing it. Honestly, people who use IE have to be clueless or insane, this URL re-write bug has been known for over a month now and Microsoft has done nothing, while their customers get victimized by scams like this.

..and I don’t go. That’s about the best thing I can say about it. I still have a job, a new title even, and presumably some new responsibilities. But I have a new supervisor who is a pale shadow of the one I used to have, I have to work with a couple of folks who have said and done some really unpleasant things about and to me over the last several years, and ultimately I think the college has really diluted what used to be one of its strengths. I know that sounds self serving, but the fact that institutions like the New York Times and funding sources like the National Endowment for the Arts were picking up on some of the stuff we were producing serves as evidence of the kind of things we were capable of. I don’t see those kinds of projects emerging from our newly structured group, and in fact I am suspicious we won’t even see them proposed. But still, at the end of the day I still have a job, and further evidence that the CIO has some faith in my abilities emerged so….what can I say. I’m trying to be optimistic and looking forward rather than backwards.

I have these moments, every now and then, when I’m almost embarrased to be a geek. Today is one of those days. While browsing rpg.net I happened across a link to this picture of a jr high school dnd club. Good lord, one of those kids looks a lot like I did at that age, bad haircut and all, and damned if I wasn’t in the dnd club for a while. While I tend to remember those times fondly, looking back on it now is almost painful when I look at that picture.

Somewhere I have copies of a newspaper story that was published about us during that time, I need to dig that out and get the scans online. May as well share my embarrasment fully 😉