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Private spaceflight company Blue Origin, helmed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, says it has landed its main rocket, New Shepard, back on Earth after launch. That would make it the first rocket ever to have gently landed and remained intact after taking off into space. It also means that Blue Origin has beaten SpaceX in the race to make the first reusable rocket; the Elon Musk-led space venture has been trying to soft-land its main rocket, the Falcon 9, for the past year.

Lileks discusses home delivery.

Billboards around town are heralding a new Amazon service: They will deliver things to your house in an hour. Makes you want to order a 12-pack of Charmin then stand out on the boulevard hopping up and down when the truck pulls up. I suppose it’s useful for people who don’t want to go the store, but I like going to the store. You go for milk and come back with Green-and-Red Holiday Eggos and Sriracha Yogurt and a shoehorn and a can of Bison chunks for the dog. Delivery cannot provide that sense of random discovery.

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The AquaBounty company applied to the Food and Drug Administration to get approval for its genetically enhanced salmon back in 1995. Its salmon are modified to using a gene from another fish called ocean pouts which enables it to grow much faster using less feed. The company has jumped through all sorts of hoops to make sure that its fish cannot escape and that it is nutritionally identical to regular salmon. Naturally, the opponents of modern biotech foods lied incessantly about its alleged dangers to the environment and people. At long last, the FDA bureaucrats have mustered the courage to follow actual scientific evidence and ruled today.

A great organization, deserving of your support.

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I am not making this up.

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Just as fascinating is the mutation that Orthodox liturgical expressions underwent from Greek to Russian. Just sayin’.

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Remember that guy in Kentucky who was arrested in July for shooting down a neighbor’s drone that was allegedly hovering over his property? He was charged with wanton endangerment and criminal mischief.

A judge has tossed out the charges.

You fly a drone over my property, that is trespass, pure and simple, and you will get what trespassers get in Texas: a bullet. Or maybe two.

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Zaiger, 85, is arguably the most famous plant breeder alive today. From his farm west of Modesto, he has created novel new fruit – like the pluot – that grace tables around the world. He has also improved familiar varieties, such as creating plums that can weather an intercontinental voyage.

These innovations have revolutionized an increasingly global fruit industry, earning him a reputation among farmers and fellow fruit experts that is hard to overstate.

“Big, with all capital letters,” suggested Tom Gradziel, a geneticist and professor of plant sciences at UC Davis. “We’re all beneficiaries, and by we I mean the public in general and me as a breeder.”

Just waiting for the ecoFascists to get around to targeting him….

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The Indianapolis Star reports 43-year-old Karen Dolley of Indianapolis threw punches until she had the man cornered during the Thursday night break-in. She then kept him subdued with a Japanese sword she keeps near her bed.

Dolley says she learned to fight as a teenager in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group that recreates skills of the Middle Ages. She also skates with roller derby team Naptown Roller Girls.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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We consume their products every day but economists give them little attention, and perhaps not enough respect. Yet America’s agriculture sector is not only the country’s oldest economic pillar but still a vital one, accounting for some 3.75 million jobs — not only in the fields, but in factories, laboratories and distribution. That compares to about 4.3 million jobs in the tech sector (which we analyzed last month here). Net farm income totaled $108 billion in 2014, according to preliminary figures from the USDA, up 24% from 2004.

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“They had discovered a growth, or a tumour, on my right kidney about the size of a walnut,” Mr Finney said. “If this didn’t happen with the shark, causing me to go in with this chest pain, I would have never known about this cancer.”

Well. There it is.

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Sometimes the old ways are best.

Don’t mess with Texas.

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The Twin Cities Marathon went off without a hitch yesterday. The perfect weather didn’t hurt a bit. The Star Tribune reports that Kenyans placed first, second, and third among the men competing in the race. An Ethiopian joined two Kenyans in the top three among the women. A good time was had by all. Black Lives Matter could not be reached for comment.

…

The Black Lives Matter crew also staged a die-in to kill for. The photograph published by the Star Tribune may provoke inappropriate laughter. The casting might be deemed racially insensitive. From the looks of the photograph, men of pallor were vastly overrepresented among the theatrical decedents.

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Scientists at an American chocolate company specialising in herbal technologies claim to have developed the “medicinal” chocolate, which contains only 35 per cent fat.

Cacao, the key ingredient in chocolate, contains a variety of antioxidants and minerals, which perform health benefits such as protecting the nervous system, reducing stroke risk and lowering blood pressure.

However, cacao is extremely bitter meaning many chocolate companies sweeten their products with fat and sugar, overriding cacao’s health benefits.

Kuka Xoco, the Boston-based firm, have discovered a new de-bittering agent in the form of a little-used herb from the Andean region of Bolivia and Peru.

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As would any veteran. A pack, not a herd.

More here.

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The dog was unharmed

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And I went to the battle on a dog with no head….

When I gassed up my car this morning, the price was $1.87 a gallon.

You people in California: Texas is a big state, we got plenty a room, y’all c’mon down.

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Marines: When you care enough to send the very best.

http://www.savagechickens.com/2015/08/counting-the-steps.html

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On Wednesday, Burger King reached out to its rival McDonald’s, proposing that the two chains come together to create a hybrid of their signature burgers, the Whopper and the Big Mac. McDonald’s declined Burger King’s proposal to make the so-called McWhopper, which was publicized in full-page ads in the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.

We’re not too upset about McDonald’s rejection, though, because really, the McWhopper just isn’t that exciting. We’ve got a few ideas for way more outrageous (yet totally marketable) unions between fast food chains.

Time magazine is not too far gone when they’ve got sufficient humor left for things like these.

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What were the train people doing?

The actor, who has starred in French films such as Betty Blue, went on to allege that train personnel ran down the corridor and took refuge in a work car, locking the door and refusing to answer to passengers.

Americans: A pack, not a herd.

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I am not making this up.

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Homeschooling—once thought to be the province of diehard evangelicals, political radicals, and others with ideological reasons to steer clear of public education—is increasingly being embraced by the middle-class city-dwellers who are simply disappointed with the quality of urban schools and helped by the way new technologies are reducing the need for professional teachers.

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The U.S. Air Force is planning to install the microwave ADS, or Active Denial System (which transmits a searchlight sized beam of energy that makes people downrange feel like their skin is on fire) on several of its sixteen new AC-130J gunships. This would provide air force gunships with a non-lethal weapon for the first time. This may not work. That’s because ADS has been ready since 2007 but has never been used. In 2012 a possible reason for this was revealed. It seems that ADS performs poorly in the rain (or fog, mist, or snow). This is a common problem with microwaves and lasers, which are broken up by all these forms of precipitation. Tests of ADS during rainy conditions found that the pain turned to a warm comfortable feeling (especially in the cold and damp). Moreover, the microwaves only work on exposed skin, which means during cold or inclement weather (when people cover up) ADS is less likely to have much impact. Apparently it was believed that it would not take the locals long to figure all this out and improvise effective countermeasures. Thus this aspect of ADS, long suspected by scientists and engineers, was kept secret until 2012.

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In a series of tests announced yesterday, the Aegis destroyer USS John Paul Jones fired three of the latest variants of Raytheon’s Standard Missile, the SM-6 Dual I. The SM-6 is an agile, long-range weapon that uses the same seeker as the AMRAAM air-to-air missile to engage enemy cruise missiles and aircraft. But the Dual I upgrade adds a new, more powerful processor that runs more sophisticated targeting software. That software lets the SM-6 identify, track, and kill something descending from the upper atmosphere at extreme speed — specifically, a ballistic missile warhead.

So on July 28th, the Missile Defense Agency launched “a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) target” over the Pacific. The John Paul Jones launched an SM-6 Dual I and destroyed the target. Then, in two subsequent tests on July 31st and August 1st, SM-6 Dual Is also shot down two different kinds of cruise missile.

Mark Steyn on Bugs Bunny.

Chuck Jones liked to tell the story of a young man who came to work with him in the Warner Brothers animation department and sent a letter home to his grandmother proudly telling her that he was writing scripts for Bugs Bunny. “I can’t understand why you’re writing scripts for Bugs Bunny,” she wrote back. “He’s funny enough just as he is.”

Two of my favorite people.

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The Navy’s 30-kilowatt weapon is currently the only operational laser in the US military that can blow things up. (Targeting lasers and non-lethal “dazzlers” are commonplace). But other weapons are in the works.

Air Force Special Operations Command wants to put a high-powered laser into a future version of its AC-130 gunship. “Block 60 with the laser, that’s not 10 years out; Block 60 is a couple years out,” said AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Brad Heithold.

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Can’t say they’re wrong.

Ring of Fire

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Reintroduce yourself to Texas A&M, CEO maker!?

Bet you forgot, didn’t you?

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Heh. Best laid plans of progs and commies….

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The good guys win one for once. Yet another stake in the heart of FDR’s corpse.

In a decision issued today in Horne v. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the USDA’s raisin confiscation scheme as an unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment.

“The reserve requirement imposed by the Raisin Committee is a clear physical taking,” observed Chief Justice John Roberts. “Actual raisins are transferred from the growers to the Government. Title to the raisins passes to the Raisin Committee.” That is a textbook example of an uncompensated government taking of private property, Roberts held, and it therefore must fall under the plain text of the Fifth Amendment.

And it also lays bare the defects of ‘diversity’:

Justice Sotomayor filed a solo dissent, in which she sided entirely with the USDA. “The government may condition the ability to offer goods in the market on the giving-up of certain property interests without effecting a per se taking,” Sotomayor asserted.

Thereby proving that she is incompetent to be a Justice of the Supreme Court. The forced ‘giving up of certain property interests’ to the government is the essence of a ‘per se taking’. Apparently a ‘wise Latina’ can’t read plain English.

Dance to the Music

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Read it. And watch the amazing video.

Me want robot horse.

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Special for Roy, the barbecue boy.

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Hey, what do you know — the top three, and five of the top seven, are in Texas.

San Marcos, Texas, for example, grew at a whopping 7.9 percent rate, from 54,567 residents in 2013 to 58,892 in 2014. It’s been the fastest growing city for three consecutive years.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason for that.

Steve Sailer runs the numbers.

Harvard economist Raj Chetty’s Equality of Opportunity Project has ranked 2,478 United States counties by upward mobility in income of young people from what their parents earned in 1996-2000 to what they earned in 2011-2012.

Here are Chetty’s Top 25 best counties out of all 2,478 for young people whose families were in the bottom half of the income distribution (determined on a national basis) in the later 1990s. Chetty is looking at IRS reported income for a combination of people who moved and for people who were permanent residents.

I haven’t looked in detail at each one, but, yeah, they’re basically pretty much all white.

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A woman being held hostage in Florida ordered a pizza with a special request — to send help — potentially saving her life and the lives of her children.

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Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

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I first became interested in homeschooling several years ago after a friend with six kids began homeschooling in San Francisco out of necessity – the public school system wanted to send each of her kids to a different school. Instead of hiring six Ubers each morning she decided to start homeschooling her kids herself.

What she told me about the experience was very different, and much better, than what I expected:

• It only takes 2-3 hours of study per day to keep up with the regular school curriculum since the kids were able to study when they were best prepared and motivated. No time was spent on bureaucracy / classroom management.
• The kids could deep dive into their own interests, thus learning self-direction and creativity without the requirement to stick to a fixed schedule and curriculum largely driven by logistical concerns
• A lot of basic material could be covered through online courses, such as those offered by Khan Academy
• A lot of learning occurs outside the home and is social

The last point was the biggest surprise to me. Especially in the Bay Area, there is a wealth of group learning activities that are offered outside of regular school. The Exploratorium, Academy of Sciences and Museum of Craft and Design, to name but a few, offer tours and classes. New microschool startups, such as QuantumCamp which offers one-day per week science programs, are popping up. Parents group together to informally organize their own classes.

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It’s a transparent armor so good it might turn the phrase “glass cannon” on its head. The Naval Research Laboratory developed a manufacturing process to reliably make a strong, transparent ceramic that also allows infrared cameras to look through it, which most commercial glass can’t do. Now that the process is complete, the NRL is sharing the technology with industry so they can scale it up to make giant sheets of transparent, lightweight, bulletproof clay.

Called Spinel, the material is made in a lab from synthetic powder. Under the right conditions, it can be shaped into strong, transparent sheets. The NRL has worked with the material for decades. Earlier production strategies used crucibles and high heat, which left behind imperfections that made the crystalline glass murky. To reliably produce clear material, NRL used a hot press under a vacuum. An added bonus to this method is that it allows the spinel to be pressed into shapes–for example, a dome for a new camera turret or a sloping panel that’s flush with a wing.

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Win-win.

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You are in a large room. There is a basket in the northeast corner and a door to your right. It is paved in cobblestones and there is blood on the stones in the center of the room. Your party enters from the south. Suddenly, from off of the room’s ceiling of comes a Hook Horror! What do you do?

If you said “Stop for a few minutes to download and 3D print most of the D&D Monster Manual in order to up the realism of your dungeon crawl” then you made the right choice. You see, a designer named Miguel Zavala has been modeling all of the D&D Monster Manual monsters in 3D and putting them up for all to download. His alphabetical collection features creatures like the Owlbear, the Ettin, and even Tiamat, the many-headed dragon that haunted the dreams of many a Saturday morning cartoon watcher.