Category: Random

We are most likely facing two significant problems in this century. The first is climate change due to increased greenhouse gases. The second is the loss of our major energy source due to oil depletion. I think it’s interesting that solving one problem is likely to solve the other one at the same time. The…

I’m back from vacation following the GCC summit. Since I was on vacation, I wonder: why are science and technology museums so often aimed at children, and art museums so often not? It’s as though science is naturally presented as educational, whereas art is something you simply appreciate. To me it would seem more natural…

No science fiction writer ever predicted what actually happened when we went to the Moon: we came home and never went back. Why did that happen? It happened because 1) going to the Moon is expensive and dangerous; and 2) after we got there once, there was nothing to gain by going there again. There…

On Bruce Schneier’s blog he pointed out a service on the Left Behind website. Left Behind is of course a reference to the popular series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (my capsule review: first volume is a decent thriller, subsequent volumes become increasingly pointless, I stopped after four). The website lets people…

The recent natural disasters in Myanmar and China have led to terrible suffering. I know that many people are doing everything they can to help the people who have been hurt. My comment is that it is clear that there were significant governmental failures in both cases. In Myanmar the government appears to be actively…