We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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This is a rush item. Go there right now if you read this as soon as it goes up:
SpaceX CEO & CTO Elon Musk will discuss the future of human spaceflight in advance of SpaceX’s planned flight later this year to the International Space Station, the first private mission to the ISS for NASA, at a National Press Club luncheon today at 1pm EST. Reusability is key to the dramatic cost savings that will enable advancements in human exploration of space. The Dragon spacecraft is fully reusable and SpaceX is working toward the goal of delivering the world’s first fully reusable launch vehicle.
Click here to watch the discussion live
Try the animation here for a peek at SpaceX’s future plans.
This post from the National Space Society links to the animation and gives information on Elon’s talk. What he is attempting is breathtaking and awesomely difficult, a task worthy of free Americans.
After parting from Jim Bennett at the Roosevelt Hotel, I had to get a shot of this classic bit of Capitalism. You feel wealthy just looking at it.
There is just a classy sexuality to the old Rolls that could never come out of the greyness of socialism.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Instead of staying underground and taking the S train, I walked back through midtown. I always enjoy just passing through Times Square. It is never the same twice. Today I was surprised at the big Xinhua News adverts on the highest and probably priciest of the computer screens which have come to dominate the place.
I sometimes wonder if I am in Times Square or crossed over into a Cyberpunk novel.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
The screens now cover the entire surfaces of some buildings in constantly shifting images.
New York or Shanghai? The world just keeps shrinking.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
I had to stop and take a photo of this advert on the wall of the 42nd Street Metro station near the stairs down to the A Train platform. I should not have been surprised by it, given that the Palestinians were asking the UN to tell them they are a State. In my opinion, based on what I hope happens out in the solar system with some Libertarian settlement someday, you do not ask the UN to be a state. You tell them. Of course the other side of this coin is that you try to make friends with your neighbors because if you shoot at them in a Libertarian world, they *will* shoot back…
Is it really peace with Israel they want or is it Israel in pieces?
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Jim Bennett was in town the last few days for a small and intense colloquium in which he had the opportunity to interact at length with Vaclav Klaus, the outspoken free-market President of Czechoslovakia. It was not until Saturday morning that we were able to get together and I arranged for Taylor Dinerman, one of our sometimes Samizdata writers, to join us for lunch. Given the nature of our conversation over burgers and Guinness I half expected to see leftish types holding their hands over their ears and running for the doors lest they hear free-market, pro-capitalist ideas. Why, one of our motley threesome was even an outspoken Republican. Oh, the Horror, the Horror!
Neither Jim nor I have had an opportunity to make the pilgrimage to the World Trade Center site in some years. I have less excuse than Jim on this matter as I pass through Manhattan so often. I just have not ‘got around to it’.
There is no comparison between what I last saw and now. When you walk down Church Street and arrive at Vesey street the new building is just THERE. For me the mood for the visit was set by the passenger jet which just happened to pass by in the frame as I took one of my first series of photos.
This image set my mood for a somber remembrance.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
The other buildings are equally fine and are rising quickly as well.
I just liked the framing…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
We had some difficulty figuring out where to go for a view of the new museum but finally did find one.
First glimpse of the new museum.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
In the process we also found much better sight lines for the new complex.
When complete this is going to be a magnificent set of buildings.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
You are never far from something which reminds you of the gravitas and the sheer holiness of this place. Reverent songs will be sung on planets of far stars of the courage of the Fireman of New York.
We will never forget.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Although I took a number of photos with Jim in them, I liked the backdrop in this even though he was somewhat dwarfed by it. I do not think Jim will mind.
Author and pioneer space entrepreneur Jim Bennett.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
I have been following news on China’s supposed near monopoly on rare earth elements for some time now and reports like this one seem to bear out my opinion that things will settle out quickly. There are other projects around the world which can produce these important high technology elements. They have only been kept out of production because the Chinese were selling at prices lower than Western production could support.
So the good news is, we got materials at low prices from the Chinese for years and created new wealth from them. And the other good news is, their attempt to extract a windfall profit is likely to fall on its face. And even better news is that one of the important new mines will be in Nebraska so even if the National Socialist Republic of California pushes prices from the old mines there into a range that keeps them closed, we will still be pulling them out of the ground in one of the Free States.
Strange is it not? We get some small backing of commercial procurement of space services from the current NASA administration and what do Republican’s do? Why they back the same old Socialist space approach that came into being to match the Russian Socialist model in the Moon race.
Then they try to hang the monstrosity of a super heavy lift vehicle on NASA… but this time around the parentage is quite clear. Certain Senators designed this vehicle, or at least set the parameters. NASA did not even want the thing, or at least the people at the top did not. (Admittedly, there are a lot of folk in the lower hierarchy and at the Centers who have lived their lives in a ‘government knows best’ cocoon and who think the solution to every problem in exploration is a bigger rocket.)
The current system is an utter bollocks. The Senate insisted NASA come up with a design; and behind the scenes it was made clear that it must contain solid rocket engines made in Utah. It also includes features that ensure an ongoing standing army to service it in Florida and crowds of workers for Tennessee and Texas…
It will never fly. The sole and single purpose of this vehicle is to employ people in those States. When the unbearable cost of this ridiculous Senatorial design becomes apparent to all, it will be cancelled. There will then be hearings, hand wringing… and they will try to foist a ‘new’ program on us to keep the pork barrel jobs going.
This frankenstein will cost $30B over its life cycle. It will fly every only once in every one or two years; it will require a standing army that will be training and working and getting paid in the mean timel; it will cost perhaps $2B per flight; it will suck up most of a declining NASA budget at the expense of everything else; and it will not take a human being into space until 2021.
Yes, folks, this is your Senate at work. Not NASA… this time at least.
With great effort our Samizdatista spies in the US Senate have uncovered the deepest secrets of the Senator/Rocket Scientists plans for a $30B Super Heavy Jobs Lifter!
Senate Rocket Scientists plans unveiled!
Montage and Gimping: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
And the Lord saith unto Achmed from on high, “Seventy virgin Windows. Windows you idiot, not Women!”
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Bongo expresses joy at his NASA aided escape from Earth and the evil Petans.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Backstory: The dinner speech by NASA Administrator General Bolden at our NSS conference in Chicago in May 2010 was briefly (about 10 seconds) interrupted by some little twit from PETA who was carried bodily to the ballroom door. We did not press charges. Her complaint? NASA was going to put some monkeys through the same things that people will be going through on a trip to Mars.
So, I am striking a blow to open the stars for all Primate-kind! Arise Primates of Earth! You have nothing to lose but 1G and your Petan chains!
You could live decades in Manhattan and still be surprised by what its vibrant capitalism throws up at you. Last weekend I got an invite to go along to a party that was raising money for some charity cause, although I was not one of the ones there to be a high roller. Let us just say I got in via the journalists back door since one of the celebrity guests was a Fox News personality who was also a friend of my usual Manhattan drinking buddy. It should come as no surprise to long time readers that when in New York I chill with journalists, spacers and the odd Irish musician.
I knew it was going to be interesting before I met up with Taylor Dinerman at the usual media waterhole, but on the some thirty block walk we were lost in discussions about typical fighter pilot behavior with the fair sex, space policy and which foot Paul Krugman is currently inserting. I was expecting something exceptional but when I finally walked over to the railing of the rooftop party I was not quite prepared for a night time view of New York like this. It is really different when you can see the city laid out in front of you in every direction and yet you are close enough to be struck by the full three dimensions. I can hardly imagine what waking up to this every day must be like, but I am glad to know there are people out there who do.
A Northerly view of the Chrysler building and surrounds.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
The party had the standard accoutrements. If you simply looked at the bar man serving drinks from a table by the core wall, or at the disk jockey in the corner, it would look like the standard parties we have all attended. The DJ laid down a modern sound track to insure all would eat, drink, be merry and network till they dropped. I was of course doing just that. I handed out Immortal Data Corporation business cards to all and sundry while keeping up my energy from the passing trays of hors d’oeuvres. I do not think I had a repeat taste all evening.
The disk jockey kept the place rocking, or whatever you call it with dance music.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Being the spacer that I am, my actual first photograph of the night was the stunning image of a fall moon rising over the East River from a southeasterly direction. A mere photograph cannot come close to what the eye took in. Believe me, this poor small subset of photons does not come close to doing it justice.
The view of the moon was even more amazing in person.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Later on, after several drinks and much mixing I decided to temporarily break from the crowd, and that was when I discovered the flat was even more spectacular than I had thought. This is where Tony Stark would live if he owned a flat in Manhattan. No doubt about it.
This is not one of Tony Stark’s residences. But it should be.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Taylor and I mostly talked with media folk, although there were lots of financial types there as well, with some of which we also spoke. I knew Taylor was fluent in French and Hebrew. Tonight I found him talking at length in German to a businessman and doing the occasional phrase in Mandarin. We were also joined by James Taranto of the Wall Street journal after he returned from a quiet far corner where he did a radio show call in to express his opinion of the latest Krugman piece at the New York Times.
One of the more fun people I spoke to was a woman who started her career as an NPR reporter assigned to Belfast. She was there in the seventies, well before my time, but we still had much common knowledge to share as she was a lover of Irish Traditional music and I think it fair to say that a few of my close friends in Ireland can play or sing a note or two of that genre.
I was there with journalist and occasional Samidatista contributor Taylor Dinerman.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
It was a very international crowd, although it is sometimes hard to tell in New York. Someone who you think looks foreign may come out with a strong New York accent when they say hello… or they may speak with a strong accent from some odd corner of the world. You simply cannot tell.
Late in the evening Taylor and I were sipping our drinks and talking Chinese politics with a VP of Tang Dynasty TV, Mike Chen. He is very much the all American himself but is able to travel and mix in China and the three of us were off in a Samizdata like discussion of China’s economy, ethnic strife problems, what happens when the North Korean penny drops, why China is building forces, what sort of aircraft India is buying and why…
I think it rather suitable that drinks in hand, we were looking down upon the United Nations Building from our high capitalist perch.
I have always looked down on the UN as an institution. But from here I really did look down on it.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Oh, and we had a chance to talk with Rita Cosby, an old friend of Taylor’s from Fox News, before he and I and James went off for our rather late dinner at McFadden’s Bar.
Despite the Corona’s, the wine, the rum and cokes, and the Johnny Walker I had already downed, or perhaps because of them, I decided after my dinner pint of Guinness that I could not let that poor pint feel lonely. So when they headed home, I headed further down Second Avenue to an old hangout of mine. The rest of the night (and pints) is another story and I was off duty as your Samizdata On The Scene reporter.
Slante!
I have been in Manhattan for the last few weeks and will remain several more. Although very busy with work for my startup company and earning enough to cover my daily Subway sandwich, I have found time for photos and a bit of fun as well.
I was in Manhattan during the 9/11 remembrance, but I only went to Times Square as getting around in the city was a bit painful at times. On the Friday before the anniversary, a full 1 train I took for an afternoon meeting went out of service for no apparent reason. The engineer told us to get off and then left us standing on a platform up in the hundreds of the Upper West. I skipped the next train as there was no one with a large enough shoe horn and vegetable oil to squeeze me on board.
On Saturday, Manhattan had more roadblocks than Belfast City Centre 1989… although there was a considerably more relaxed constabulary and no automatic weapons in sight.
I did not actually see the new building until this Thursday. I decided to get off the subway early and walk down 7th Avenue through Greenwich and the East Village since I was not in a rush for a fixed time meeting. I did not notice it at first… the new building was directly in front of me but it did not register for quite some time because it is not yet the sort of overawing magnitude of the old Twin Towers. Once I did realize though, I could see that although already a large building, it has a long way to go and is going to be a very large upraised middle finger to the Jihadi’s.
It has a long way to go but with an eventual height of 1776 feet it is a message to the world writ large in concrete and steel.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
It is just our simple, quaint, un-nuanced American way of saying ‘Up yours Osama”; our way of telling the Jihadi’s they have failed and that they will always fail. We will track them down no matter where they hide and no matter how long it takes. And we will kill them.
Meanwhile, we will rebuild and go back to our proper business of making money.
There is not a lot for me to add. Just go watch it.
One thing comes through to me as I hear the stories from those doing their part for the remembrance. Far from destroying America, the lowly jihadi’s have created a powerful religious symbol. The World Trade Center has become a site of enormous power. Tiny pieces of metal from the site have been forged into religious icons. They are a part of a warship, a part of wind chimes for a church. They are items treated with great awe and reverence, perhaps as much as were bits of the ‘one true cross’ to generations of the distant past.
To the Jihadi’s and to those who think they will one day bring Shari’a to America, I say, “You have not only failed. You have created icons of greater power than your Mecca.”
I will go further. Two thousand years from now you and your icons will be remembered only in dusty historical archives. The World Trade Center site will still be there and will have gained a patina of age and legend, a tale of demons who came from out of the East and carried death, destruction and great evil with them as they battered a brave and honorable people.
But the more evil they did, the more the forces of good grew, until one day the hand of all peoples were raised against them and they were cast back into the lowest depths of hell and provinces of the damned from whence they had come.
Jihadi’s, you are done. Your dreams are dead. Your followers are dead or will soon be dead. Your beliefs will be forgotten. You have made us stronger and you and all about you are dust in the winds of time.
I do not have to curse you. You have cursed yourselves.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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