Sound and Complete

I was about to put a review of my new Garmin Edge 500 cycling computer here, but I found a very in-depth review online that I’d rather recommend. It’s so good that I actually managed to learn some new things about the device myself from it…

We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise – so let’s do it. The ship can be similar in size and will have the same look as the USS Enterprise that we know from the Star Trek science fiction. It ends up that this ship configuration is quite functional. This first generation Enterprise can have 1g artificial gravity and ample living space. It can be as comfortable to live in as being on earth. A thousand people can be on board at once – either as crew members or as adventurous visitors. While the ship will not travel at warp speed, it can travel at a constant acceleration such that the ship can easily get to key points of interest in our solar system. The Enterprise would be three things in one: a spaceship, a space station, and a spaceport. Finally we will have a permanent and viable foothold in space – a sustainable, roving village out in the heavens. Building the Enterprise will provide a giant leap forward for the human race when it comes to the task of establishing a permanent infrastructure in space, on the moon, and on Mars – an infrastructure needed to pull us farther out into space, the place we are surely destined to explore and live.

Right, let’s build The Enterprise. Jokes and laughs aside, I want to make two comments:

1. The man is right about one thing: it’s enormously embarrassing that in terms of space exploration mankind is able to do more or less as much in 2012 as it was in 1966. We are using old rockets, we have an unfinished space station in low orbit that doesn’t even have gravity, we have just retired our super old¹ space shuttles, hell, we wouldn’t even be able to put a man back on the moon anymore! If you asked an astronaut in 1969 what will space exploration look like in 2012, he’d probably expect a couple of moon bases, Mars exploration, regular manned flights and all that, whereas what we have is a fleet of GPS satellites.

2. While the cost of $1 trillion seems pretty high, the website provides some intriguing observations about US federal budget spending. I’m not an economist and am terrible with numbers, but from what BTE-Dan writes, spending $1 trillion over 30 years of development, production and testing of USS Enterprise amounts to using .27% of US GDP per year. This again sounds like a lot, but according to BTE website, NASA’s funding was about .50% of GDP (avg) during years 1962-72. What’s even funnier, in terms of absolute values .27% of US GDP would mean spending ~$40 billion per year. A lot, right? US Department of Defense spending for 2012 is $553 billion.

A pity that the whole initiative is centered around a spaceship design from a science-fiction movie/tv-show, because no one serious will take it seriously.

Unless you’ve recently had a bag on your head to be specially renditioned, are related to murdered Israeli athletes, don’t like lesbian kisses, cock, dildo or pussy jokes, and unless you think that cancer, torture, dwarves, Jews, Arabs, infanticide, paedophilia, prostitution, incest, rape, anti-Semitism, casual racism or misogyny are inappropriate subjects for jokes, then it really is hard to find that much to be offended by in The Dictator.

What a neat way to recommend a movie. After reading what Boing Boing wrote I’m actually considering going to the cinema.

According to a recent investigation by the Swedish news show Uppdrag Granskning, Sweden’s telecommunications giant Teliasonera is the latest Western country revealed to be colluding with authoritarian regimes by selling them high-tech surveillance gear to spy on its citizens. Teliasonera has allegedly enabled the governments of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Kazakhstan to spy on journalists, union leaders, and members of the political opposition. One Teliasonera whistle-blower told the reporters, “The Arab Spring prompted the regimes to tighten their surveillance. … There’s no limit to how much wiretapping is done, none at all.”

This and the idea of charging for Skype and voip connections make me consider moving to Telenor. Or Alekstra.