Anticipating the Biden Administration
Joe Biden will be sworn in as the next president of the United States on the 20th January 2021. What can we expect of this new administration? I’m thinking that Biden will model his policies on those of Obama while adding some more socialism to the brew. I’m expecting an increase in race-based policies;...
My Welcome to Texas
I moved to Texas from Virginia in 2000 after getting a job with a large defense contractor in Austin. The Texas I found in Austin and its suburbs was radically different than my expectations. Having been born and raised in Scotland the only thing I knew about Texas came from cowboy movies. I expected...
Dark Sky
I am and have always been an unapologetic scientist. Worse than that, I’m a hard scientist, a physicist. No soft ‘science’ for me. What’s more, I’m not a person of faith. I’m not a believer that a sentient being created the universe as a playpen for humans. I also do not believe that such...
A Memorial Brick for my Dad
There are many bricks in the veterans memorial plaza where I live in Texas each with a different name and a different story. The brick I want to talk about looks a bit different than the rest and I hope to explain why, and why it sits with all the others. It all started...
Covid
Pfizer on Friday became the first company to seek emergency authorization for a coronavirus vaccine in the United States, a landmark moment and a signal that a powerful tool to help control the pandemic could begin to be available by late December. ...
Space X Launch
Big things are happening in a tiny Texas town. Located on the southernmost tip of the state, Boca Chica has rapidly become a popular destination amongst space enthusiasts from around the globe. Why? It all started back in 2013, when Elon Musk, founder of aerospace company, SpaceX, announced that he was considering the small...
The Birds — A Tale From Long Ago And Far Away
Once upon a time I was doing research as a physicist on the military applications of lasers and electro-optic systems. As a consequence of world events the military became wary of having their anti-aircraft radar systems attacked by anti-radar missiles. Better they thought to look at methods of detecting aircraft by passive means to...
2020 — A Year of COVID–19 and Presidential Elections
In an old blog post I described my dilemma in voting for a presidential candidate in the 2016 election. I described the dilemma as like Hobson’s choice but modified that description because Hobson had the choice of something or nothing; a bad horse or no horse at all. My dilemma was one of choosing...
The Mars Jolly
Back in the day when I was sent on a trip to visit a customer, supplier or to a meeting we called it 'going on a jolly'. There’s a lot of talk right now about sending people to Mars; a Mars Jolly. There’s even talk of making this a one way trip and not...