Lively Debate

The NASA administrator is admitting that The space shuttle was a mistake. Nice to find this out $150 billion and 14 lives later. Time to park this thing in the museum of bad 70's engineering right next to the ford pinto. (Housed in a building with dreadful 70s architecture, of course.)

The problem is that the shuttle was built by committee to serve multiple masters. Is it a passenger vehicle? Is it a cargo vehicle? Its both. The overwhelming concern with getting people into space is safety. The concern with getting stuff into space is cost. The shuttle was supposed to be safe and cheap. It turned out to be neither.

The design geniuses at Apple can tell you all about the success of convergence products.

This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is a day late but full of juicy link goodness. Here are the tastiest picks from the smorgasbord:

• Tom delay and Budget Fat makes a great point using the example of milk. The government pays money to increase the price of milk. The government pays money so that the poor can afford the more expensive milk. You pay money in taxes and higher milk prices to keep the whole circle going.
• And yet, Poverty in the United States isn't what it used to be.
• The politics of science tackles global warming. I have to wonder if human caused global warming isn't the Phrenology or Phlogiston of the twenty first century.
• Demolition Bonds details an interesting way to change the behavior of construction. Could this be a solution to urban sprawl, urban blight and McMansions?

Welcome to my new blog. Lively Debate is an extraction of the "non-professional" content from my blog, Professional PHP. From now on, technical discussions will be there. Everything else is here.

In the course of redirecting posts from the old blog to this one, I've had to review many of my posts over the last year and a half. Here are some of my favorites that can be found at Lively Debate:

• Climbing the corporate ladder in sweat pants and bare feet - Where do reporters find these "representative" people?
• Competing with Wal-Mart - My direct experiences with Wal-Mart coming to town.
• Fast Food Outsourcing - May I take your order?
• Bush wins despite campaign mistakes - A day after wrap up of the election.
• The connection between gay marriage and terrorism - Things over heard.
• Offshoring is good for America - Free trade from a tech perspective. The sky is not falling.
• Carnival of the Metronome - My top picks from the Carnival of the Capitalists acts like a metronome, forcing me to post on a regular basis.

Grab a feed and stay awhile. Regular posting resumes now.