Apollo 11 after 45 years

John Seiler — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 21:40:59 +0000

I still remember in wonderment watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on TV 45 years ago this week. Here’s what we saw, as Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the lunar surface:

A great deal of the Apollo 11 program was made right here in California. The second stage of the giant Saturn V rocket was made by North American Aviation in Seal Beach.

But the most important contribution was the mini-computers using Silicon Valley-made circuits. It’s often said that the Apollo program “drove” technological innovation in micro-computers, an argument used to justify other government industrial policies and spending. In fact, the opposite is the truth.

In his essay, “Two Young Men Who Went West,” included in the “Hooking Up” book, Tom Wolfe wrote, “People were beginning to talk about all that the space program was doing for the computer sciences. [Fairchild Semiconductor’s Robert] Noyce knew it was the other way around.”

Moore’s Law, which has been backdated to the 19th century, also refutes the contention that government spending promotes innovation. No matter whether government spending has gone up or down, computing power (or pre-computer electromechanical and vacuum tube calculation power) has doubled every 12 to 18 months:

Given my current views, if I had been in Congress in the 1960s, I would have voted against the funding for the Apollo program, which totaled $24 billion over a decade — about $500 billion in today’s money.

At the time, Amercians thought we were so rich we could “have it all”: the Vietnam War, the Great Society welfare programs funding the War on Poverty, the Apollo program. Things broke down financially in the 1970s with “stagflation”: stagnation plus inflation.

But landing on the moon: What an adventure!

A surprising number of Americans believe the Apollo missions were faked in back lots in Hollywood.

And these people get to vote.

Explains a lot.

Apple Cracking Textbook Racket

CalWatchdog Staff — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:16:09 +0000

John Seiler:

The biggest ripoff going is textbooks for K-12 and, even worse, college. I know some college kids who spend way more than $1,000 a year for required textbooks for their college classes.

Usually the texts are sub-par regurgitations of P.C. claptrap. And the professors who write the texts “update” them every couple of years, so you can’t buy a used copy.

Enter Apple.

According to Ars Technica, “Apple announced what it’s calling ‘iBooks 2’ during its media event in New York on Thursday, a textbook software program that allows textbook-makers and instructors to create rich, interactive teaching media for the iPad. As we first reported earlier this week, the announcement is akin to ‘GarageBand for e-books,’ giving authors access to easy-to-use tools on the computer in order to create multimedia content for the iPad.”

Steve Jobs lives!

Apple says the price will be no more than $14.99 for high-school books. It’s not clear what could be charged for college texts. But it’s unlikely anyone would be dumb enough to charge the $100 or more kids get stuck with nowadays.

This also will sharply cut costs for private, parochial and home schools.

And instead of kids schlepping around heavy textbooks, they can sprint carrying their iPads, weight 1.34 lbs.

Interactive

The new iBooks also will be interactive. So instead of just reading about the Space Race of the 1950s and 1960s, students could read the text, then watch pictures of rockets taking off, such as the Apollo 11 launching; or listen to JFK’s moon shot speech.

Better yet, kids also will be able to download critiques of their textbooks. Imagine taking a sociology class and getting stuck with a textbook laden with the usual post-modern, deconstructionist, anti-Western, Marxist, anti-capitalist rubbish. But on your iPad, right next to the official text, is snarky commentary from some other student that you uploaded.

The monopoly on students’ thoughts has been broken. The cultural Marxist totalitarian Berlin Wall inside kids’ minds has been torn down.

How appropriate that, on the same day Apple announced this great new tool of liberation, Reuters reported, “Apple Inc’s quarterly results blew past Wall Street’s expectations as U.S. consumers snapped up near-record numbers of iPhones and iPads, sending its shares up 8 percent.”

The truth shall make you free. In color and with a soundtrack. With your iBooks 2.

Jan. 24, 2012

Apollo 11 – CalWatchdog.com

Apollo 11 after 45 years

Apple Cracking Textbook Racket

Interactive