With the recent civilian billionaires heading to space, Rob and Andrew invited me as a guest on their show After Dark on America Out Loud to speak about space, humans going there, and my helping build satellites with NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency). I haven’t gotten to nerd out on my rocket-based work in years, even decades. I don’t remember the hard equations since I’m out of practice,[…] Keep reading →

How many times have you heard people suggest the answer to our environmental problems is more technology? Have you heard of carcinogens or other toxic chemicals coming from places other than our technology? I guess some things like animal venom or naturally occurring heavy metals, but there aren’t too many of them. Volcanoes may emit carbon dioxide, but not enough to raise Earth’s temperature by a degree per decade. For[…] Keep reading →

Go back and listen to my conversations with the writers who wrote on slavery: Adam Hoschschild and his book Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves Eric Metaxas and his book Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery Manisha Sinha and her book The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition Andrés Reséndez and his book The Other Slavery: The[…] Keep reading →

I’ve posted about finding used syringes in Washington Square Park and Penn Station. Besides the syringes, I described my unexpected wincing at seeing someone inject in broad daylight. Today I sat in the park working on my computer in the area where people use openly. One woman sat on the bench I did, over six feet away, just on the other side of the metal arm rest, got out a[…] Keep reading →

Recent New York Times stories, Harvard Victory Pushes Admissions Case Toward a More Conservative Supreme Court and Affirmative Action Cases May Reach Supreme Court Even Without Trump, both by Anemona Hartocollis, lay bare a national divide. [Note: You may notice the “recent” stories are from last year. I wrote this post soon after the articles but held back on posting it. I keep reading about well-meaning people apparently deliberately misunderstood[…] Keep reading →

I spoke to my father in the months leading to last November’s election. He lives in Pennsylvania, a state that could have gone either way. He was concerned about the outcome. I suggested speaking to people who might vote differently than him to influence them. He wouldn’t. He would only speak to people who were voting his way. It’s easier not to face conflict, let alone resolve it, at least[…] Keep reading →

I didn’t think of how small my building’s elevators were when I bought a sofa after moving into my current apartment. It didn’t fit. The deliverymen tried to bring it up the stairs too. They made the first landing, but couldn’t make the turn to go up the next flight. They had to take it back. I ended up paying a $300 restocking fee plus big tips for the deliverymen’s[…] Keep reading →

Environmentalists try to convince, lecture, and argue people into changing their behavior and legislators to changing laws. Argument provokes people to argue back more than to change. Non-environmentalists do it too. The other day at a cocktail party a guy kept arguing with me how the environment was fine. I couldn’t get us off the subject. A new way of thinking about it hit me: People will act when five[…] Keep reading →

Over the weekend I went to Washington Square Park to read, so I was there for a couple hours. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Bright and just hot enough that you’d want to avoid the sun but not so hot that you couldn’t stand it. A guy sat on a bench diagonally across from me with a cup of ice cream from a nearby store. Besides him, I would[…] Keep reading →