There were fairly major strike protests that were entirely uncovered in much media.

https://apnews.com/article/britain-doctors-strike-nhs-inflation-crisis-52d9263d28566da80a98858dcd289b85

Wait till you hear about the protests in the UK.

A fun number to remember is that a circle with the diameter of the lunar orbit is very close to 1/64th the radius of earth. This means the earth covers about 1/4000th of the area which an asteroid has to pass through if it gets within the lunar distance.

So, if it goes past at 1 lunar distance, you have a 1/4000 chance of a hit (if it was random). 1/4 lunar distance, 16/4000 (1/250).

Yes, but also no.

There is technological or process advancement savings for which this argumemnt might be made.

And then there is savings from not doing things in a knowingly financially inefficient but politically expedient manner.

To an extent. If, for example, the funding drops to a half, and you get three times more efficient, ...

Buying a service from someone cheaper that you can source that service elsewhere is not actually a subsidy.

That the Artemis program has a depressing paucity of ambition and that inbuilt into its DNA is several assumptions that are nearly barking mad.

If it all goes perfectly right, and every part of it performs as well as might be hoped, you get about 20 tons to and from the lunar surface, for a total of around some hundred billion dollars.

This works out to around five million dollars a kilo - you're never ever doing serious 'moonbase' type stuff on that sort of launch cost.

• Among some of the baked-in assumptions are that propellant transfer in orbit is impossible, assembly in orbit is impossible, crew transfer in orbit is undesired. (These drive the use of SLS).

Then the selection of the gateway orbit was driven largely by Orion requirements, which is a whole nother pile of fish.

The use of SLS then sets the price expectation for Orion and all hardware that goes near the moon, again ballooning costs.

My hope for the program is that perhaps the translunar flyby flight by SLS goes ahead, at which time Starship is flying, and the new generation of launchers is coming online making a wholesale reconsidering of the program and scrapping most of the legacy elements worthwhile.

Leading to hundred ton payloads landing on the moon for less outlay than the two ton ones.

As context - if SpaceX gets propellant transfer working, with a couple of depots in orbit, and charges for launch the same price /kg as Falcon heavy, you end up with cargo on the moon costing $10K/kg, not $5000K/kg.

'Permanent moon base' - 'that word, I do not think it means what you think it means'.

No permanent habitation on or around the moon, very close to the same number of flights as apollo, with nearly the same cadence, for basically the same money.

(taking for the moment that the lunar lander solution would be something like BOs lander for BO money, as starship lander raises the unfortunate 'can do every single thing the rest of the program can do' issue)

We have no idea what we might put on the moon at $10000/kg (F9 cost for starship, times about ten for extra delta-v with depots). The current hardware is all designed to be two orders of magnitude more expensive.

(I am not saying spacex is the only solution, just that it's looking like several vendors might be qualified in the nearish future for launching largish payloads to LEO at $1K/kg.)

Literally all publishing contracts specify who has editorial control and how much control.

Dahl had the option, when writing his will, or signing the initial contracts, to put in various conditions as to what could be done with his work.

He chose not to. Amongst other things, this would have reduced those works value.

The recent controversy might be better written as '$30B company gets massive free advertising for their product on which they have a monopoly for 30 years'.

It's nothing to do with the author any more. The only people that benefit meaningfully after the death of the author are the lawyers and the corporate system.

I hope you get a similar syndrome that utterly destroys your life, and every hope and dream you once had as it has mine.

Observe the above table. It did not exist for new claimants. The number of existing claimants is not yet zero.

The rates for DLA have never been significantly higher than PIP since the creation of PIP as a benefit. I have been following this, as I have been on DLA since before the introduction of PIP, migrating some three years after PIP came into existance.

If your father was getting significantly more than PIP, on DLA, either he was found to be not meeting the criteria for PIP, or he was getting some additional benefit, possibly help with health care costs.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2022/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2022 - showing there were 1.2M claimants remaining in 2022.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1036433/benefit-and-pension-rates-2022-2023.pdf

2022 rates for DLA highest rates, £92.40+64.50

2022 rates for PIP highest rates £92.40 + 64.50.

DLA was replaced by PIP. Rates are more or less comparable.

Err, no they didn't. Currently on both ESA (not migrated to UC) and PIP top rates.

For added fun, vaccines do almost nothing to reduce the risk of longcovid. In some studies it's 50%, others find no benefit. (There is significant benefit against prompt severe outcomes, so get vaccinated)

Combine that with vaccination meaning the excuse was given to allow infections to roll through the population, and you've got nearly perfect conditions for a mass disabling event.

Aged 11, I got mono. Like some percent of people who get it, I got a syndrome that basically precisely matches the symptoms of longcovid. (the set of longcovid patients that don't recover in 6 months and remain ill).

I have never been able to work, and am hoping for a cure by retirement age, which is looking increasingly unlikely.

I have cost the UK of the order of a million pounds (counting expected benefit for my remaining years, lost tax revenue, lost carer tax revenue and extra pension spend, and interest).

Post-acute viral diseases (longcovid, ME/CFS, ...) are comedically neglected in medical research and have had little work done on them in the last decades.

For covid, if you look at the life-years lost to death, and compare with the life-years lost to disability (counting as half a year per year for being unable to work), for about under age 45-50, longcovid dominates. And this assumes a cure tomorrow.

We have no idea of a mechanism for longcovid - there are many debated ones, and no idea what a drug to reverse that cause would do, even if it worked. A newly developed drug is likely twenty years out if we have no understanding of the mechanism right now.

(Clearly, some are out of the workplace due to non-covid related illnesses, for example healthcare delays due to the collapsing healthcare system)

https://resources.depaul.edu/newsroom/news/press-releases/Pages/mecfs_mono_2021.aspx

Shakespear - a woman describing night terrors and PTSD.

“O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offense have I this fortnight been A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?

Tell me, sweet lord, what is ‘t that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?

Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sit’st alone?

Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?

In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed, Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talk’d Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight.

Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream;

And in thy face strange motions have appeared, Such as we see when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not.” —Henry IV, Part 1 (2.3.39-67)

I note shakespear, who has been dead a bit, describing night terrors and flashbacks.

“O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offense have I this fortnight been A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?

Tell me, sweet lord, what is ‘t that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?

Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sit’st alone?

Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?

In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,

Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talk’d Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain,

And all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war

And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream;

And in thy face strange motions have appeared, Such as we see when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not.” —Henry IV, Part 1 (2.3.39-67)

That kinda implies the people are getting a useful education to them. Many will find out it's not really been so.

Get very ill.

Do not recommend. 1/10

He's forgetting to multiply the methane emissions by their impact.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#methane

'Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO2. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 is 25 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.1

You have to multiply that 2% by the effectiveness at causing global warming, to get more like an seventh than a fiftieth.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#methane

Agriculture releases around 150 million tons of methane a year into the environment, or half a million tons a day.

Of this, a hundred million tons comes from cow farms. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2020.0451

Agriculture releases around 150 million tons of methane a year into the environment, or half a million tons a day.

Of this, a hundred million tons comes from cow farms. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2020.0451