For all of you who have been waiting to get one ever since you saw the Rocketeer, you're about to be very satisfied. The Martin Jetpack goes on sale in 2012 for $100,000. If you're worried about where you might be able to fly this thing or whether it's "street" legal, worry no more. It will comply with FAA regulations. You'll be able to fly up to 63 mph with a flight time of 30 minutes. Go here for more info.
My life is weird right now. The work I do doesn't have much to speak of in the way of tangible output. I have my own schedule that I set. I basically do what I want when I want. I've never had things this unstructured before. I'm getting used to it. I came up with a spreadsheet to divide up my time, downloaded an online timer that stresses the Pomodoro Technique, and have my whiteboard with my To Do's listed (I know that's not possessive, but it looks weird just as "Dos," right?). It's still weird though. My time will be divided between on-campus office hours, grading papers, working on my thesis, working on my fellowship, and now studying for the GMAT. It should be enough to keep me busy, but I'm still figuring out how to manage this stuff.
Speaking of GMAT, I talked with a few people I know that are recently enrolled in this year's MBA class. They couldn't have been more excited about what they were doing. I'm still leaning that way, but not decided yet. We'll see, but in the interim I have lots of math to brush up on.
I bought the STP greatest hits album the other day after discovering that I don't own have any digital copies of their music. It surprised me because I had a few of their tapes. You read that right: tapes. Anyway, I've been digging on this song lately:
And then one last thing. Read this article from a pro-lifer over in the UK writing for the Spectator. You just don't get the same kind of writing here in the US. I just wanted post a few excerpts:
If you’re still convinced that all abortions, even the late ones for babies with hare-lips, are good, then here’s a question: how do you feel about killing kittens? I ask because it’s often abortion’s greatest fans who feel most indignant on behalf of animals. They’ll go to the wall to save a chicken-killing fox from hounds, but sod the babies. There was a story last year about a group of scientists who had decided that dolphins were so intelligent that they should be given official rights. ‘The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin relations,’ said the zoologist. Well great, let’s fund an inquiry into dolphin rights, I’m all for it. But what about that group of pre-born living beings whose neuroanatomy might suggest an even greater psychological continuity with our own?
If you want cold-blooded reason, look at it another way. A utilitarian calculus would, I’m pretty sure, tell you that the most ethical thing to do with an unwanted pregnancy, what would make most people most happy, is for the reluctant mother to carry an unwanted baby to full term and give it up for adoption. The adopted parents will be thrilled, and their happiness has every chance of lasting a lifetime — longer than the biological mother’s discomfort. And then there’s the child’s happiness to consider. It’s daft to ask which it would prefer — what would you prefer? Anyone would rather be adopted than aborted. To suggest otherwise is to spit in the eye of life.
That’s what I think of this very gung-ho attitude to abortion — it’s just bloody ungrateful. A spit in the eye of life. Yes, nature’s pretty cruel, but no sane, well-fed bitch would kill her healthy puppy because its lip was twisted. There’s a tragicomic horror about a society in which every year a few couples undertake the incredible business of making a new human, only to throw it away because a tiny bit of it’s folded wrong, and you know, the corrective operation might leave a scar. But far worse is a society in which even to raise some doubts about this is to be considered a laughable lunatic. The best and only explanation I can come up with is that secretly we all know this; we know the current consensus is wrong, but it’s just easier to stay in denial.
Just thought that was interesting. See ya!
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