steven ray orr

Steven Siceloff for NASA:

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif., on Friday targeted May 19 for the launch of its upcoming demonstration mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff time is at 4:55 a.m. EDT, with a launch window that is instantaneous

I get caught up in the romantics of this.

We could be explorers again like Magellan or Shackleton, this time charting the vast, infinitude of the stars. We could see planets and moons that are but specks in a telescope. It has been so easy, over the last few years, to become jaded with politics and our society and the minutia of technology. SpaceX gets me excited about “the future (of our species)” which hasn’t happened in a long time.

I would absolutely love to stand on the surface of Mars or see Alpha Centauri with my own eyes, but I also know that such things are outside of my grasp. Poets and philosophers make for lousy explorers. It is enough for me that we, as a species, are reaching upward. It is enough for me that we, as a people, are overcoming chains that were not even imagined by our ancestors – tasks so difficult, so alien that they would only describe it as touching the face of god. This is about more than the whimsical realized dream of an individual; it is the progression of the entire species.

This is how human beings are made great.

(Via Hacker News)

Jay Barnson:

But do you want to know the best form of anti-piracy?

Being pro-customer.

Just my opinion.

But then, they sell a million copies at launch, and I … uh, don’t. So maybe I’m the idiot here.

It has been a long time since I considered myself a gamer. Yes, I poke my head out of my shell for some of the high-profile releases – Skyrim being the most recent – but I have given up my focus on midnight releases and teaser trailers. The amount of work required to keep up on every “must have” game has become more effort than I am willing to put into the hobby, but I still find myself drawn to long-awaited sequels.

I fondly recall my first two forays into Hell¹ and the eleven years that it has taken for Diablo III to arrive is long enough for those memories to build into a kind of mythology. Like any remembrances given sufficient time to establish deep roots, the game has been replaced by the idea of the game. I do not know whether I could return to those versions of Tristram and Sanctuary – at least, not without experiencing a disconnect between the reality and the memory.

So it is with no small amount of trepidation that I gaze on at Diablo III; it is not likely that I will have the same experiences that I once did. Things change. The past colours the present and not often favourably. Demon hunters and monks, auction houses, auto-levelling. Differences stand starkly in opposition to our memories. Games are different than they used to be. The mass multiplayer style of online authentication has changed the relationship that gamers have with publishers, with developers. The moment of purchase begins a relationship, but constant Internet connections ensures that relationship continues long after money is spent.

I have not yet begun my tryst with Diablo III. Eventually, I will. Which may be proof enough that Blizzard knows what they are doing with this game: they are still getting my money. Despite my concerns, despite memories, despite “Always On” DRM. Blizzard is still getting paid.

Maybe they do know what they are doing…

Pat Jordan for the New York Times:

Before shooting, [Samuel L.] Jackson reads his script a dozen times, sometimes memorizing all the other characters’ lines as well as his own. Jackson is almost pathologically meticulous about hitting his mark, picking up a prop, say, on the same word, take after take. “That’s called playing the movie game,” he said.

Jackson is one of my favorite actors. The amount of work that he puts into his parts ensures that watching him play them is anything but work. Because of him, even the movies that are flops still feel fun and have a life to them. He seems incredibly aware of his good fortune in being allowed to act – and at no point does he take that for granted.

(Via Matt Thomas)

Also of hilarious note from the same article:

Correction: April 26, 2012

An earlier version of the Samuel L. Jackson Movie Generator included a photograph of a Tupac Shakur impersonator, not one of Shakur himself.

jonnathanson at Hacker News:

Long before many (most?) of us even realized we had a conscious say in being weird, our peers made that call for us. What we’re actually choosing is how to contextualize and reckon with that weirdness.

Self-definition comes long after we are defined by others. Usually, we must first choose whether to accept or reject the labels that others thrust on us. Human beings do not exist in social vacuums and who we are is a question of how we relate to those around us.

The nature of this does not change outside of high school. The difference is the level of freedom that one experiences when removed from the ridiculous structures that come with being an adolescent: teachers, home rooms, lunch breaks, curfews. I will not deny that these things have a place – particularly when one is developing and unable (or unwilling) to make responsible decisions for oneself. But we also have to acknowledge that the environment that it creates is incredibly problematic. At least, those of us who were damaged by it have to acknowledge it – even if some of us come out better for having experienced it, there are enough who don’t that for it to be worrying.

High school is a terrible place to discover yourself. The part that troubles me is that I cannot come up with anything better.

Mind Hacks:

If I read the phrase “as addictive as cocaine” one more time I’m going to hit the bottle.

There is a tendency in our culture to refuse responsibility for our actions. We blame. We litigate. We do everything but acknowledge the possibility of our own ineptitude. It is so ingrained in our social structures that it seems entirely normal for us to seek justice in any slight or harm, perceived or otherwise.

“As addictive as X” is a symptom of this disease, of our inability to examine our actions as having consequences that we could have and should have foreseen. This is not to suggest that addiction does not exist, but simply a reminder that it is not the cause for every time that we lack the willpower to say, “no”. We are imperfect beings and we will, on occasion, make poor decisions. The key is that we should learn from them so that we do not continue to make those poor decisions in the future.

To claim that we are victims of addiction every time we are inept does not teach anything and it does not lead to a capable human beings; the moment of clarity¹ is a moment of complete powerlessness and it is not a state that we should be eager to step into. We should, whenever possible, aim to cast long shadows and be powerful beyond measure.

(Via The Morning News)

From Greg Bishop’s piece on Tom Thibodeau, Chicago Bulls head coach:

“This is his life,” Duncan said. “For better or worse, he doesn’t have a lot of other interests. Maybe he has no other interests.”.

Thibodeau told him, “There’s no room in my life for a woman if I’m going to be a basketball coach.”

Selfishly, we wish it were different sometimes,” David said. “That we’d be able to see him with the family, mess around with his kids, the way he messes around with ours, normal stuff. If I could choose fame over that, I would take him here in a second. But this is his dream. So this is our dream.”

A reminder that we can be called to many different tasks and that success is a small measure of talent combined with absolute determination. Genius has more to do with a state of mind than an inborn gift.

(Via Matt Thomas)

I was born in Saskatchewan; I was raised in British Columbia; and I am American.

To be perfectly clear, there are no technicalities here: both Canada and the United States consider me to be a Canadian citizen; I have a British Columbian driver’s license; and both the words “Liberal” and “Conservative” are naturally capitalized when I spell them. Geographically, I may be a Canadian, but globalization and the Internet have radically altered the way that we perceive ourselves.

I have no intentions of misleading when I speak in broad terms about how we have lost the American dream. I, primarily, read about politics and news within the United States. Most of my cultural and social influences are from American sources. It has stopped being possible for me to understand my identity without acknowledging the nation and culture that so strongly defines my politics, entertainment, and news.

Hopefully, this helps alleviate any confusion on regarding my geography.

Judy Patrick for the Huffington Post:

What if we publicly challenged the notion, rooted so deep in this fiercely individual culture, that we are not each others’ keepers? What if we believed, and acted as if, we have a responsibility for one another and that together we must work to leave a healthy state for our children and our neighbors’ children?

Can we admit that this system, whatever we are calling it, is broken? How many people have to starve before we declare capitalism to be an inappropriate method of organizing human beings? How many have to die because of a lack of medicine or shelter or care?

None of us were built to be Atlas, bearing the world upon our backs utterly alone, but it might be possible that we were not even built to carry our own weight alone. Life makes weary our bones and there comes a time when we must rest. This we all know, even if we would rather not admit that age will make us weaker. Why is it so difficult to make this jump from elderly care to poverty?

We are not perfect. At times, we lean upon those who care for us and let them carry some of our weight. This is not a measure of our individual weakness; it is a measure of our combined strength, of our ability to come together and be something much greater than the sum of our parts. That is what a society is, that is what a nation should be: to care for each other enough to carry each other.

The Washington Post:

When asked about his views on same-sex marriage, Vice President Biden said he is “absolutely comfortable” with men marrying men and women marrying women. When Education Secretary Arne Duncan was asked Monday whether he thinks that same-sex couples should be able to marry, he said, “Yes, I do.”

This is nowhere near where the United States, as a nation, needs to be on this. Same-sex marriage is not an “issue”; homosexuals are no more an “interest group” than were disenfranchised women; and this is not a topic on which political points should be scored. Same-sex marriage should be allowed because to deny it is tyranny.

Joseph Stiglitz for The European:

What is happening to most citizens in a country? When you look at America, you have to concede that we have failed. Most Americans today are worse off than they were fifteen years ago. … The economic system is not delivering.

The American Dream has been shattered.¹ It is no longer conceivable to imagine ourselves, in the 21st Century, as possible of attaining even an ounce of our once immeasurable capacity, let alone fulfilling the promise of greatness that this democracy was founded upon. We live and work and survive because capitalism demands it, but this system finds no intrinsic value in the human being. It is only our capacity to produce that permits our survival.

Our wealth, our money, our debts have become the chains by which we are bound, but not to each other. “Welfare state” has become a dirty word which politicians throw at each other, instead of clinging to as a battle cry behind which to rally forces. But why should our fates be separate from each other? Why is it somehow noble to rise and fall with an economy run by exchanges of wealth and private corporations?

There is a once-simple truth that has become obfuscated by debit cards and credit limits and bank loans and stock markets. It is a notion that, very soon, may only be possible metaphorically and, thus, even easier to forget.

Money burns.

Even in a bank account, even on Wall Street, money can still be let go of.

It is not yet the time for that to happen. This crisis, although terrible, is not at that apex – not yet, anyway – but we should try to remember that money is simply numbers on paper and accounts with a bank. It only has the importance that we give it and we need to ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, whether that valuation is worthy of humanity.

(Via The Morning News)