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Monday, March 15, 2004 |
Lying About Drugs OK, Says GAO. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) wonders, to the General Accounting Office (GAO), whether it's OK that the Office of National Drug Control Policy uses taxpayer money to spread lies about drug use in order to influence state elections. GAO says, sure. A Marijuana Policy Project account here; GAO response to Paul here. [Hit & Run]
11:26:19 AM Permalink
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MrPicassoHead
This is a great site, featuring a flash applet that lets anyone "draw" a Picasso-style illustration using primitives. Very creative, and some people have accomplished some really cool pictures.
[ Secular Blasphemy]
9:22:22 AM Permalink
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Hubble Supporters Have Only Just Begun To Fight. Today's lead story over on SpaceRef is a must-read. Entitled "NASA's Hubble Space Telescope: A Fate Far From Certain", author Keith Cowing covers the major flurry of activity last week in the ongoing debate over fate of the Hubble Space Telescope. [SciScoop]
9:16:46 AM Permalink
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The Big One With Our Name On It
At last Friday's Long Now seminar, Rusty Schweikart
gave an interesting presentation on the chances of our planet being
thwacked by asteroids of various sizes over the next 100,000 years, and
what we might do about it. Ask any dinosaur: it's not something to look
forward to. Schweikart has a foundation, B612,
with the goal of, by 2015, significantly altering the orbit of an
asteroid. A worthy goal. B612 wants to work with NASA through the Prometheus Program,
which is an attempt to build a standard set of tools for future solar
system exploration. I certainly have hopes for Prometheus, but lately
I'm very down on NASA.
There are two ways to alter the orbit of an asteroid: by hitting it
with something hard in an explosive way, or by attaching a relatively
small motor to it and gradually changing its orbit. The second method
is preferred: it's more controllable but probably more difficult.
Asteroids are generally not very dense, and can take a good thwack (as
from a bunch of bombs) and absorb the energy without necessarily
changing their orbits. Also, it seems to me a good hard bump could
conceivably break it apart so instead of one big rock coming at us,
we've got many smaller ones.
This is complicated stuff. He showed a scenario where the asteroid is
projected to hit, say, Eastern Europe. A gentle push over 100 days
would alter the orbit so it doesn't hit the earth at all. But what
happens if you only push it for 40 or 60 days, so that instead of
missing, it hits France or England? Ouch. And who will decide and pay?
If you're Japan in this case, or Vietnam, you might not have a big
interest in putting a lot of resources into saving central Europe. Or
France. This is, if nothing else, material for a great novel.
Schweikart, from Stewart Brand's introduction, had one of the seminal experiences in space. During an early space walk,
he was untethered from the command module and actually found himself
with some minutes of no activity, existing, in essense, as a satellite
of himself, and able to gaze directly at the earth and space. This was
a transforming moment, and it's not hard to imagine why. Schweikart
also spoke of Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth, and it seems like it might be a good idea to revisit this book.
BTW, some of the Long Now seminars are available for download in different formats. This one isn't there yet, but do check them out;
they're lots of fun, and a good way to take yourself out of your day to
day problems, and even the relatively longer term problems of politics.
I can't attend the next seminar -- Ralph Stanley at Freight and Salvage that night!
9:05:34 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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