New Rochester blog...

Let's see how it goes, only one blog post so far - but it is informative:

Sisters of Murphy

I love the name - apparently an Irish play on the name of the Leonard Cohen song (and the band) "Sisters of Mercy". Playing, appropriately enough, at Murphy's Law (I've seen them at the Krown)

Quote of the day

I’ll get the speech about how wonderful I am. Basic rule, isn’t it? More wonderful you are at the start of the speech, the more dumped you are at the end.
-- Coupling

Quote of the Day

"Wind power has no future on the Moon."
Randall Parker, FuturePundit, in an article on lunar applications of solar power

Making our own romantic night-time sky

According to Slashdot, Venus is no longer going to be the brightest object in our night sky - the International Space Station is going to beat it with the newest set of solar wings.

This will give lovers something a bit more frisky than the typical planet to gaze at (I wonder if this will affect birthrates?) while lying on darkened lawns, but it might peeve astronomers that are already upset at "light pollution".

Quote of the day

"I really quite like being single. Except for the bit about not having a man."
- from the BBC series "Coupling"

Jet city....

Some people view corporate jets as being in the same category as champagne and expensive cigars. Much has been made of the executives flying to their begging session in these jets, but here is a good defense of that "perq", especially the Cessnas that can land in 3250 feet:

That figure — 3,250 feet — means business aircraft can alight on any of the 5,000 or so public-use airports scattered throughout the nation’s suburbs, small towns and back country, as well as land at small city airports abandoned by airlines decades ago. By contrast, the airlines fly to only about 500 airports, and of those, fewer than 70 get about three-quarters of all traffic.

If two companies are competing for business, the one using a business aircraft can fly directly to one of those smaller airports and get to lunch with the client before the other guys taking the commercial airlines show up.

And the business people with the corporate jet won’t just arrive faster; they’ll also show up better prepared. After all, most companies send teams of people, and in their own airplane they’re free to discuss confidential information or polish up that PowerPoint presentation. What’s more, they can use the phones, their BlackBerrys and the Internet en route. In other words, these jets are offices that move.

Of course, only the last part of that applies to landing in Washington to beg, and I'm still not very sympathetic to taxpayer handouts to ANY corporations....but I don't like thoughtless sneering either.

HT MR.