The Image of the Day from NASA today is the launch of a rocket that carries a payload to test an inflatable re-entry system. Note the light pole and picnic table on the lower right of the picture, showing the scale of the rocket. Looks like it could have been launched from a freeway rest area. Not every space-related engineering test has to involve rockets tens of stories tall… — Cross-posted between...

The title is actually a recent headline from the New York Times for an article discussing what some U.S. college graduates are doing faced with a dismal domestic jobs market. In fact, this might be a solution to America’s more-than-likely future jobless recovery and our growing inability to create worthwhile new jobs. The U.S. today has now fewer jobs than it did in 2001, and that doesn’t even include...

Boeing has had a tough time getting the first production 787 Dreamliner planes delivered. Some of the recent problems have involved the composite materials used in the construction of the fuselage and wings. Ordinarily, I’m all for the use of new technologies and new materials. The carbon composites being used in the 787 are significantly stronger than aluminum for the same weight, which for airplanes...

Some critics of current Democratic healthcare reforms falsely assert that a public option entity would kill competition within the U.S. private health insurance market. This claim begs several questions. Is the private health insurance market really competitive? Should it even be based on free-market principles? Several studies have shown that in most cases across the U.S. just one or two private insurance...

When I first read the WSJ opinion piece by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, something seemed a little odd. So, I also went to his blog and glanced at the article he had submitted to the WSJ. It seemed, just to an editor’s squinty eye, that what Mackey wrote was originally about 200 words longer than the WSJ piece. Mr. Mackey is known for quoting stats, people, and studies… and often. There was a dearth...

by Walter Brasch More than 230,000 cases of the Swine Flu have been confirmed world wide. About 2,100 persons have died. As much as one-fourth of America’s workforce may be infected by Swine Flu when it peaks in Winter, according to studies conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC scientists isolated and developed the seed strain of swine flu. Working furiously to manufacture...

For a moment, just for a brief moment, I thought that we were beginning to step back from the brink of all-out, take-no-prisoners combat on one of the most divisive issues surrounding healthcare reform. After alleging that her parents and her Down Syndrome baby would have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel,” “so his bureaucrats can decide…whether they are worthy of health...

As covered in the Washington Post this week, NASA has released its latest report on their ability to locate and track dangerous objects in our solar system which have the potential to cross our orbit and possibly impact the Earth. (Full .pdf report is available from JPL here.) The news isn’t great. Congress tasked NASA several years ago with the job of locating the lion’s share of an estimated 20,000...

What is the significance of Microsoft’s recent deal to create an alliance with Yahoo and its search-based confrontation with Google? While using an Internet search engine is simple and most of us think little of it, access to this technology is profoundly changing our world. According to Andrian Kreve of Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung: “Google is a corporation that monopolizes questions....

Google’s just released opt-out feature — it protects users’ privacy by moving them to a remote 22-acre village — is getting all the buzz but the real story is this item buried in the news crawl, “Obama to slip universal health care into iTunes user agreement.” Via @AmandaFrench.

Mike Keefe, The Denver Post This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

A week ago, in “The F-22 Program Cancellation: The Aftermath,” we discussed the recent cancellation of the F-22 Raptor program, and the potential impact on national security and on the aerospace defense part of the economy. Potential, because it is still too early to evaluate any concrete impact in either area. That doesn’t mean that aerospace defense and economic experts haven’t expressed...

Did you know that August is “National make-a-will month”? I didn’t, until I happened to hear Rush Limbaugh mention it today in an advertisement counseling his listeners on the importance of having a will and a living will, and providing the name of a company that would assist them in getting those important documents prepared. The company mentioned by Rush Limbaugh describes a living will...

The LATimes finds the porn industry in a tech-induced slump: Industry insiders estimate that since 2007, revenue for most adult production and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50% and the number of new films made has fallen sharply… At least five of the 100 top websites in the U.S. are portals for free pornography, referred to in the industry as “tube sites,” according to Internet...

Rumors started early this morning and the sale has now been confirmed. Bret Taylor on the Friendfeed blog: FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We’re still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team. As usual, we will communicate openly about our plans as they develop — keep an eye on the FriendFeed News group for updates. The Facebook...

I am never surprised by the ignorance of many people, but some expressions of stupidity sometimes amaze me. I find it difficult to swallow when some Americans compare any U.S. elected official they oppose to Chancellor Adolph Hitler of Germany’s Third Reich. Many years ago, a few on the left suggested that of President Bush but most mainstream Democrats publicly repudiated the connection. Now some prominent...

I was outside this morning having my first cup of coffee and looking at the dismal progress of my tomatoes, (which are totally failing to ripen) and it got me to thinking about the odd weather we’ve been having this summer. Summer is, of course, the traditional hurricane season, but have you seen many of them in the news? I haven’t seen much about it in the blogosphere. I stopped by the National...

Silicon Alley Insider: One of Microsoft’s biggest challenges with Windows 7 is an easy upgrade path for consumers and corporations. As this chart illustrates, it’s a mess: Only a few upgrade paths qualify for an “in-place upgrade,” which means you can keep “files, settings, and programs intact from your current Windows version.” Most will require a “custom install,”...

And the target was a single user who vocally supports the Republic of Georgia. So says one researcher in a story getting lots of traction: According to Bill Woodcock, research director at the non-profit Packet Clearing House, the torrent of traffic that brought the site to its knees wasn’t the result of a traditional DDoS, or distributed denial of service attack, but rather people who clicked on a link...

In Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, Michael Pollan asks, What is wrong with this picture? Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef”...

NYTimes Bits Blog: Twitter, the popular microblogging service, was crippled Thursday morning by a denial-of-service attack. The extended silence in a normally noisy Twitterworld began around 9 a.m. Twitter later posted a note to its status update page saying the site had been slowed to a standstill by an attack. [...] Other sites reported that they were targets of denial-of-service attacks as well. The social-networking...

The arrival of the “People’s Car” (equivalent US$2,421) — Nano – on Indian roads “is a symbol of the coming-of-age of mass consumerism in the developing world,” says Andrew Buncombe of The Independent. “India’s roads are broken and inadequate, the country is overcrowded and there is a middle class of anywhere up to 300 million people who might be tempted...

Way back in January, 2009, I started posting on the F-22 Raptor program, on how, “One of the first weapon systems-related decisions the Obama administration will have to make is whether to purchase additional Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptors, after the last one of a 183 aircraft order has been delivered.” Already back then, the F-22 issue, and those of related weapon systems, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,...

Chris Albrecht, cross-posting on Business Week, wonders Will Viral Video Kill the Music Video? Historically, music videos were promotional vehicles that ran on outlets such as MTV. Big budgets were spent on lavish productions meant to captivate watchers, prodding them into buying the single or album the song was on. But while music videos have proven enormously popular on YouTube, earlier this year the video-sharing...

The U.S. Marine Corps has banned Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media sites from its networks. Wired’s Danger Room: “These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries,” reads a Marine Corps order, issued Monday. “The very nature of SNS [social...