Eighteen years ago today, I very selfishly used up the entire world supply of good luck. My deepest apologies if you were affected personally by the resulting shortage. But in my defense, it was worth it.
Your 80-year old reminder of the ethical decision you make if you choose to dissociate your fantasies of space exploration & love of rockets from the politics of the people building & launching them.
Credit: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Hello all. This is a thread for those who, like me, are stressed out by the U.S. election season. These final weeks before Election Day can be psychologically grueling. Both campaigns are going flat out. The MSM won’t stop its horse race approach; if anything, they seem determined to double down on it. Meanwhile, Trump increases the toxicity of his brew of misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. He escalates his commitment to making the U.S. a martial dictatorship. 1/
So @oggcamp is well and truly over for this year, but I'm pretty sure I'll be back next time. It's been great to catch up with old friends, and to meet loads of new ones. It means so much to me when people I don't know thank me for making the podcasts, even if I'm bad at showing that appreciation.
We all showed up, the speakers shared valuable knowledge and sparked new ideas, and the crew made it all run without friction. But @garythewilliams made this happen by stepping up and taking charge. ❤️
@gruber Lol, I can see that. But wow, what a remarkable performance. I know the prosthetics are a big part of it, but talk about the actor just disappearing into the character.
That's a wrap for another year! Special thanks to crew, organisers and sponsors for helping make it happen. Keep following for updates on how OggCamp-next is shaping up! #oggcamp#overandout
Well, I thought #OggCamp2024 was great. Thanks in particular to the team and crew for making it happen, and thanks to the community for keeping the spirit of #OggCamp alive, and sharing it again this weekend.
My blog is a good way to keep up with what I’m up to, and has links to other places you can find me online between now and OggCamp.Next.
Also! Very important thank yous to our sponsors; to the supporting organisations who showed up to take part; and, to the venue and hotel staff. All of these folks were friendly and helpful and supportive of our event this weekend. 🙏🏻#OggCamp2024#OggCamp
Mastodon for Harris midday update, 10/13. If you have a few dollars, now is a good time to support Harris for President. We are helping the campaign fund ballot access, ballot protection, and legal preparation for post Election Day litigation. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mastodon-for-harris
Funds raised as of this post: $646,104.64 # of contributions: 7028
Current target: $650,000
(Because we are less than a month from Election Day, I will no longer be posting the number of monthly recurring contributions.)
Netscape Navigator 0.9b shipped 30 years ago today. I had co-founded an early Internet hosting company, Point of Presence Company (POPCO), with a friend, Todd. Todd got quoted in the announcement press release! https://glog.glennf.com/blog/2014/10/13/netscape-navigator-free-beta
[this originally said 20 years because I am too old to remember it was 30 years]
One way the post-Twitter social media networks remind me of that place in the early-to-mid 2010s, is that I see a lot of folks attacking a candidate who either supports or could be persuaded to support much of what they want, but not talking about how they're going to stop the guy who 100% will gleefully burn everything to the ground, not only preventing progress but rolling back a century-plus of what has passed for progress in the US.
"But this is when we have power to make the candidate do what we want, by threatening to withhold our votes!"
No, we're three weeks out. We have a chance with one candidate IF they win. Demanding unequivocal commitment is asking them to maybe alienate another constituency in a coin-flip election. All their intelligence is telling them there is zero room for error here, with razor-thin margins. It's not like they have a few months to try to win back a faltering bloc.
This is the point in the election where a united front is important, where we stop feeding people's doubts and creating excuses for them to not support the scenario where something good can actually happen.
Feel free to think I'm cynical or a sellout or whatever, but I know the difference between having some chance and having worse than no chance at all.
The director of UNOOSA mentioned atmospheric pollution from satellites as a big problem in her closing remarks for the conference, but not in her opening remarks. I call that a big step in the right direction! I had SO many great discussions with so many people working in so many different aspects of the space industry (and a couple of good arguments too).
Pretty much every discussion I was in ended with "the UN needs to regulate satellites!" Not sure how to make that happen though...