Category: anonradio

ASFO 2023–08–26

Chestnuts? (Not the literary kind, either.) It seems there are few subjects on which I don’t have at least a little to say. Also why a Mars colony needs good AI ― and LLMs will kill you out there ; a long digression on the American mode of providing medical services (which is still not a “health care system”) ; and a possible visit to Loscon in late November.

Supplementary Show

  • 2023–08–29 More from ST ’87, mostly regarding the Venera–15 and –16 and Veha/Vega missions, and the then–planned but ultimately unsuccessful Phobos missions.
  • 2023–09–01 Probably the last I will read from ST ’87, including a note by Valery Legasov about Chernobyl and its implications. Did not archive.

ASFO 2023–08–19

When you don’t pay, that’s piracy, and it’s a crime. When we don’t pay, it’s just good business. Also, “grain disposal systems” in America, and fertilizer in Africa ; the surprising connection between mushrooms, Texas school libraries, and California math classes ; and a note on the continuing (largely pointless) controversy over the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2023–08–22 Further from ST ’87 : Soviet Science and Technology : Thirty Years of the Space Age, a chronology.
  • 2023–08–25 A somewhat aimless quasi–random walk through ST ’87 : Soviet Science and Technology. There are quite a few good segments in this book, as well as some I read in a spirit of irony, talking about the next 30 years of the CMEA and so on. (May not have archived properly)

ASFO 2023–08–12

Back from vacation! Do I have anything new to say? Complaints about landlords, economists, and bad reasoning probably don’t qualify. Also a brief description of some of my recent activities, and a reflection on the failure of oil to spur broader economic and social development even in some of the largest producing countries.

Supplementary Show

  • 2023–08–15 ATOM 302 (1981 December) supplies the material : a summary of a lecture in October of that year by the incoming President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Sir Francis Tombs, under the head of Misunderstanding Nuclear Power ; a report on a colloquium in Paris on Energy and Society, organized by the deeply antinuclear “Groupe de Bellerive” ; and a couple of short items.
  • 2023–08–18 Selections from a Novosti Press Agency Almanac ST ’87 : Soviet Science and Technology. I read the captions to the two color glossy photo sections, and then most of From the First Satellite to Orbital Research Complexes, a contribution by cosmonaut and engineer Georgi Grechko DSc, to a section headed Jubilees, Memorable Dates, Reminiscences.

ASFO 2023–08–05

Transit poverty, a new name (perhaps) for a common observation. Also the Bazalgette Problem, or, did you oversize your infrastructure, and if not, what are you going to do? Another show beginning late because I lost track of time at the beach. And I entirely missed doing a show on the 29th of August.

ASFO 2023–07–22

Report from Pemmi–con, describing my displays, and bemoaning the computer problems (partly self–inflicted) which have caused a key part of my atomic energy display, built around circa–1990 German payphones, not to work. From here I jump off into a brief discussion of the problems of control interfaces, opining that the reasons which make touchplates a very bad choice for cars are much stronger for spacecraft, and indeed space settlements.

Luna Project display at Pemmi-con in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In the centre of the image a display of postal covers hangs over a table draped with a cloth displaying the blue-and-yellow Luna Project "rocket" logo at front. Along the panels to both sides are hung a set of six prints by Frank Kelly Freas.
Luna Project display at Pemmi-con as described in the show
A view of part of the "Man and Atom" display at Pemmi-con in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Two tables can be seen, one facing the viewer and draped with the "radiant atom clutched in a fist" logo and the slogan "Atomic Power to the People". A variety of nuclear-related posters and other materials is displayed along sections of fencing covered with pegboard.
Man and Atom display at Pemmi-con, as described in the show
A view of the "Man and Atom" display at Pemmi-con in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A table can be seen draped with the "atomic flower" logo and the motto "Split Atoms Not Wood". On it there is a portable video player. Along four sections of fence panelling, and on freestanding grid constructions, are posterboards with panels covered with text and images, including many pages scanned from public-information documents.
Another view of the Man and Atom display at Pemmi-con