Immigrant Nobel laureates

A Facebook friend with a Ph.D. in Physics posted the following as her status: All six US science Nobel prize winners this year are immigrants.Last year, all six US noble [sic] prize winners were al… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash, clear tech details

“What the Lion Air Pilots May Have Needed to Do to Avoid a Crash” (nytimes) contains a lot of good cockpit photos and illustrations explaining the combination of manual and automatic fl… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

“Marriage and alimony are acceptable, but being single and letting a guy give you things is not”

“How to Date a Lot of Billionaires” (nytimes, 11/10/2018): The Matharoo sisters never intended to become a cautionary tale about the perils of social media influence. They were born and… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Women suing Dartmouth demanding damages sufficient to send every Dartmouth student to University of New Hampshire

“7 Women Accuse Dartmouth Professors of Sexual Abuse in Lawsuit” (nytimes): Seven women are suing Dartmouth College for sexual assault, harassment and discrimination they say they exper… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

H-1B program means that MIT graduates aren’t special anymore?

I got the cold shoulder from a couple of aviation companies when I invited them to come speak and demo in our three-day FAA Ground School class at M.I.T.  Maybe it is Boston’s typically miser… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

The Amazon HQ2 deals show how to implement a planned economy?

I’m wondering if the Amazon HQ2 deals show how to implement a planned economy without having to acknowledge that one’s country has transitioned away from the market. Planned Economy v1.… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Surveillance Nation

“The Subway Bomber’s Journey to 42nd Street, Captured on Camera” (nytimes, November 5, 2018) is a little shocking for showing just how many security cameras are running in our cities th… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Amazon settles into low-tax New York City

“Amazon Announces New York and Virginia as HQ2 Picks” (nytimes): Amazon could receive more than $2 billion in tax incentives across the two top locations, the company said in its announ… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Veterans Day Observed (F-35)

Today we observe Veterans Day. In addition to remembering those who died in previous wars, let’s consider our arsenal for the next ones. The F-35 was used in combat by the US for the first ti… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Veterans Day with a B-29 crew member

We went to the New England Air Museum today, home of a beautifully restored B-29, and met two former B-29 crew members. One is 92 and one is 94. Both were navigators, which meant a lot of radar wor… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Boeing 737 crash is first mass killing by software?

The Lion Air 610 mystery/tragedy seems to be mostly solved. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane, which uses a de Havilland Comet (1949; also BBC)-style hydro-mechanical flight control system, has a touch… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

If the migrant caravan demands buses, why not give them plane tickets to Canada?

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau says that Canada welcomes any refugees or asylum-seekers that the U.S. rejects. “Central American Migrants in Mexico Want Buses to US Border” (nytimes) s… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Family background of the California shooter?

The professor in Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations into Human Personality cites research that personality is highly heritable and disordered personality characteristics are even more heritabl… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Why does Eric Schneiderman run free while Harvey Weinstein is criminally prosecuted?

“Schneiderman Will Not Face Criminal Charges in Abuse Complaints” (nytimes): After a six-month investigation, prosecutors said Thursday that they would not pursue criminal charges again… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Equatorial countries will attack us with CO2 vacuums?

We in the temperate zones of Planet Earth have been waging war on folks at the Equator for the past few hundred years. We dig up dinosaur blood and coal, set it on fire, and fill with atmosphere wi… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Farm-to-table cuisine after the dream kitchen renovation

A friend’s new two-refrigerator kitchen: | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Should our new Congress declare war on Venezuela?

We have a new (better?) Congress as of today. The Uber driver who picked me up recently in “North Bethesda” (Rockville!) happened to be an immigrant from Venezuela. His parents and sibl… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Aspiration for Democrats: a government voted into office by people who can’t find the Post Office

A California Democrat on Facebook posted a link to “College students say they can’t send in their absentee ballots because they don’t know where to buy stamps” (Business Ins… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Barbara Streisand may be moving to Canada after today…

… but not Mexico?  “Barbra Streisand Can’t Get Trump Out of Her Head. So She Sang About Him.” (nytimes): How are you feeling these days?I want to sleep nights, if we take the Hous… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Election outcome predictions?

Folks: What are your election outcome predictions? So much of the ballot in our town is taken up by candidates running unopposed that I haven’t put much effort into considering Massachusetts … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Elizabeth Warren’s first motorcycle and an early iPad…

… part of the collection at the New England Air Museum (also a B-29!): | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Nerds help to heal the world…

… by voting for Democrats. From “Letter from [MIT] President Reif: Consoling each other and helping to heal the world”: As our nation once again confronts heartbreaking mass viole… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

What it takes to welcome refugees and other immigrants

Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America by James and Deborah Fallows identifies the presence of refugees and immigrants as a sign of an American town’s success. What’… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

ADS-B should sequence airplanes at nontowered airports?

I flew the Cirrus recently to Gaithersburg, an airport that supposedly sees only 131 operations per day (airnav). On the flight from Allentown, Pennsylvania to KGAI, the controllers did not even on… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Why does the U.S. accept refugees from Bhutan?

I’ve recently finished Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America by James and Deborah Fallows. James is a Cirrus pilot and the couple traveled around via light airplane so I… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Artwork of victimhood strategy proves unprofitable for our local museum

The deCordova museum hit the financial wall recently and is being absorbed by a more successful nonprofit. From the press release: Like many non-profits, deCordova has an endowment that has not gro… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Ideas for flying around New England

A Swiss surgeon recently came to Boston for a conference. East Coast Aero Club prices are 1/3 to 1/2 what it costs to rent a plane in Switzerland so he decided to spend a week before the conference… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Stuff that I got spectacularly wrong in 2003

I’ve been going back through some old blog postings here as part of the migration effort from Harvard’s server. Here are some things that I got wrong… Media Lab has boomed along w… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Silicon Valley is the best reason to vote Republican next week?

As technology takes over American lives, literally in the case of Facebook, I wonder if voting Republican tomorrow isn’t the best way for Americans to #Resist total domination by their smug r… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Google management supports a walkout by female employees

A subclass of employees of Google today will stop working and “walk out” (to where? a suburban parking lot?). The management of the company says that they support this walkout. Can we i… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Could a man have shared this on Facebook and kept his job?

A big law firm partner shared the following (friends-only) on Facebook: I have something to say to all the young girls out there. Love yourself. Appreciate your body. Tell yourself that you are bea… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Massachusetts ballot questions

This year we voters in the Land of Righteousness (i.e., Massachusetts) get to decide… Question 3: whether the government should continue to be able to imprison people for up to 1 year and/or … | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Yale students upset at a political party that “favors the wealthy”

An East Coast Aero Club customer from Switzerland wanted to burn up some Cirrus SR20 time. So it was off to KHVN and the Yale University Art Gallery. Walking around the campus we saw signs preparin… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Coastal elites decide on fair wages for blue collar Americans in the interior

From a coastal elite venture capitalist friend on Facebook: When these 5,000+ migrants inevitably arrive at the US / Mexico border and begin to force their way across, what if we rallied 10,000 Ame… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Time to plan the Bahamas and Caribbean trip with new AOPA guides

I think it is time to plan a new Bahamas/Caribbean trip. The last one was in 2003 in a Diamond DA-40 (write-up). Back then I wrote “The bible of Caribbean flying is the Bahamas & Caribbea… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Please test the new server

Folks: As you may have noticed, as of today this 15-year-old blog is now integrated into my regular philip.greenspun.com server. Can you please test signing up for email alerts, commenting, and any… | Continue reading


@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago

Money, Money, Money (and Investing) (2015)

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@philip.greenspun.com | 6 years ago