Space is not, or will not, just be the domain of states and their military-industrial-scientific complexes; it will also be conquered by private firms. That might even be desirable, that’s what people like Martin Rees have been arguing for quite some time now.
But is it happening? Perhaps.
Masten Space Systems, Inc. will send a kilogram of something into suborbital, microgravity flight for $250. Here’s an animated movie of their idea.
[via New Scientist and Vetenskapsnytt.]
Max Planck Research Network Seminar “History of Scientific Objects”, Copenhagen 8-12 May: still a few vacant seats at this interesting seminar at the Medical Museion.
Found a draft paper of a chapter for the upcoming new STS Handbook that looks interesting: Philip Mirowski and Esther-Mirjam Sent, “The Commercialization of Science, and the Response of STS”.
The Research Policy Institute is 40 this year. Just heard that Stuart Blume and Dominique Pestre had been confirmed as speakers for our conference in September.
Google scholar is about to add some kind of ranking system, on the lines of Pagerank.
This strikes me as a good thing but I wish they would share that ranking algorithm. I recognize that they are probably looking to patent it (ugh!), but there’s a tradition in the academic community about being a bit transparent about such things
Alex Halavais writes. How very true; science ought to be about openness, many times it is not.
Science has a special issue on bird flu. Now: analyze.
(An idea for an activity for our introductory STS course. We’ll see.)
I’m moving this blog to WordPress. Hopefully you will see it in its new and shiny wordpressy splendour here in a while, but one never knows. If it is successful, you will need to enter new rss feeds for your subscriptions …
It’s been a long time since I wrote here; instead I’ve been blogging over at my Swedish blog.
I feel it is time to resume at least sporadic blogging in English.
Oh, and I’ve switched from Movable Type to WordPress. Works like a charm.
As a side comment in an interesting post about the correlation between label typography and wine quality, Stefan Geens writes about queues at Swedish Systembolaget stores (the state-run monopoly for selling alcohol), and wonders about the possibility in a black market for queue tickets, had such a system been present in Russia.
Such a black market in queue tickets sometimes happened at Swedish Systembolaget shops some ten years ago. I remember it well: rush hour, Friday afternoon, looong waiting times (40 minutes or so), stressed out academics and other upper middle class people that bought home the Friday dinner goodies on their way home.
Enter the ragged entrepreneur: middle-aged men, who by the look of it drank professionally, in parks and under bridges, walked in and printed out queue numbers and then sold them outside Systembolaget. They gained 5 kr or so for each ticket, buyers gained 35 minutes in a stressful situation (thereby, no doubt, reducing the risk of both cardiovascular complications as well as disharmony among the waiting family members at home).
Now, that is all gone, at least in my home town, Lund. Systembolaget is open Saturdays, so the Friday afternoon rush has abated. Systemet shops in Lund are of the supermarket variety, not the queue-to-a-counter type. Queues are much shorter, and there aren’t any numbers in use.
An evolution for ordinary consumers, but the professional drinkers lost a kind of beautiful extra income. Philosophically, one could muse about the structure of Swedish alcohol policy that for a time created a small but welcome extra flow of cash for people who were slowly drinking themselves to death; or, economists studying entrepreneurship could use the example to find entrepreneurs in all walks of life. Since I am neither an economist nor a philosopher, I leave that as an exercise to the reader.
Latest Comments