Bitchin' Dave's Newsletter - Mar 26

 Dave’s Musings

The majority of the "Don't Say Gay" legislation in Florida has been implemented, even though it continues to work its way through the court system due to various legal challenges.

But there was one piece for which the teacher's union sued the state, and they reached a settlement a few weeks ago. This was about the conduct of teachers outside of the framework of actual classroom teaching. In short, the state has agreed to let teachers continue to express themselves, to talk about identity and relationships, and to use terms and names that students prefer - as long as they are "not taught."

Make no mistake: it is a victory against the nonsense that the state put out there under the guise of "protecting children" when in reality it was to "keep children in the dark," "restricting free speech," and to "make it hard for them to figure out who they are and who they can talk to."

Its a bit of good news, and a starting point.

I ran out of space in the last newsletter, but a little over a week ago, we saw attempt #3 at launching Starship. The net outcome is more progress toward a truly reusable very large craft. On the positive side: They were able to ignite all the engines on the first stage They were successful at "hot staging" the second stage They reached orbital insertion This is the largest man-made object to be launched into space They opened the outer doors, which means they could launch a satellite in the future They were able to pump fuel from one tank to another (a requirement for deep space travel) They made a re-entry maneuver, and could generally control descent. On the downside: The first stage did not have its rockets re-ignite, and was lost The second stage was also lost as it re-entered the atmosphere - but not before we got some amazing video, including seeing the plasma that built up around the craft. Failure is always an option, and the learnings will lead to more success in the future, I'm sure.

A couple of researchers in the Netherlands are proposing what they call a "heat battery" which uses sodium and water to create water vapor, which cools, and has a byproduct of salt, which stores the heat. The overall effect is that you could cool a building's roof with the vapor - while simultaneously using the trapped heat to eliminate the need for a water heater. Its tremendously environmentally forward-thinking. Even though the concept has been considered before, it could never be used at scale. And the next step is to put the theory into practice in a neighborhood in Europe. https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/heat-battery-home-power-electricity-efficient/

Ahead of the proxy vote, there is some (conveniently) leaked information about 4 people the Walt Disney company has tagged as possible successors to Bob Iger in the CEO role. The names should officially be considered rumors. And I wouldn't doubt the number of possible candidates is closer to 8 at this point, possibly with some coming from the outside (but who have ties to Disney). The 4 people we learned about are Dana Walden, who currently heads up the linear TV division, Jimmy Pitaro, who runs ESPN, Alan Bergman, who runs the film business, and Josh D'Amaro who runs theme parks. Its an interesting list, and its deliberate in its intent to show that there is NO intent to break the company up at this time.

Proving once again that Florida politicians are so in touch with their constituents, and apparently because they just look for things to support the interests of the big players in Florida (ie, insurance and utilities), legislators passed a law that would prohibit off-shore wind farms because, essentially, they would be ugly. Of course, it doesn't much matter, because the placement of them would be further off the coast, where Florida's domain ceases to exist. And if, in fact, the utilities themselves wanted wind farms, they'd get the legislature to update the law. This is another case of grandstanding. For no real reason. https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/florida-moves-to-ban-nonexistent-offshore-wind-over-views-from-the-beach/2-1-1609069

Latest video

Gas or Electric in cars. Which is cheaper? https://youtu.be/b2qbLblo6rU

One Little Spark …

I’m troubled by the discussion about TikTok being bad, and wanting to ban it. And saying that data privacy is a concern, that the Chinese government can use it to collect data and influence, etc, etc, etc. is problematic. Look, I’m not saying TikTok is anything great or that there isn’t something to discuss. But singling it out among the various social media platforms seems motivated by something more (politics I would assume) Children’s privacy and mental health is a concern on all the platforms.  But there are dozens of small players where the denizens sometimes hangout. Who’s watching those? And to the other two big players: Meta’s Instagram is allowed to promote videos it chooses, and we have no idea what the algorithm is, or how data is being used (or shared). Xitter has a vague privacy policy, and its owner said he would disseminate information about the platform to whoever he thinks requires it. And of course he wants to use it to develop his own AI solutions. Overall, I have no issues with trying to mediate these platforms - all of them - in a reasonable way. Freedom of speech is fine, except when the government has issues with that and restricts it.