Author: Michael Koppelman

Things greater than yourself

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Most of my readers know that I am an atheist. I’ve written about it extensively but let me summarize to say — atheism is a movement of hope, rationale and enjoyment of life. It is not an outlook which is depressing or fatalistic.

There are many people I love in this world but, if push came to shove, it is hard to predict who among them, if any, I would actually die for. It is easy to say that I would die for my awesome wife or my brother or sister but if the moment were to arrive, without time to think about it, I cannot really predict what I would do.

This is not true of my children. I would absolutely and without a moment’s hesitation die for them. My kids are a higher purpose, of a sort, for me. They need me, they love me and they are wonderful lovable little beings. They are without question the most important thing in my life.

I’ve written before about my belief that life without children is a wonderful thing. I don’t think parenthood is necessarily greater than any other lifestyle choice. But once that bridge is crossed I think all but the most selfish losers quickly find their higher purpose in their children.

The tension is — there is much I want to do in my life. I to not intend to be a servant to my children. Yet my life has been unquestionably enriched by their presence.

And finally — I think perhaps the only good thing about religion is that it gives people a little humility about their place in the world. I don’t need religion to give me that, personally, but the realization that there are things more important than yourself is one that is quite necessary in this world.

Things greater than yourself

Blog overdrive

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I noticed I haven’t been posting too much here lately and it’s because I have been posting elsewhere. I added The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast to my blogroll. Check it out! It’s going to be really cool and I need your help to spread the word.

We also have a few new things over at Slacker Astronomy.

And did you check out my iPhone app, Bubbler? GIVE ME $0.99 NOW!!!!!

Spread a little too thin sometimes…

Blog overdrive

iPhone launch videos

Michael Koppelman, 3 Comments

Finally, here is video of the 3 launches of my iPhone. The first one is the failed launch due to a motor failure. The 2nd is the one where I got all the data that I’ve posted. The 3rd one I got almost no data but the motor performed better as the flight seemed much more normal.

Sorry Elton! Don’t sue me, but I couldn’t think of a more appropriate song.

iPhone launch videos

TRA #012058

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I joined the Tripoli Rocketry Association (TRA). This allows me to get certified to buy and fly bigger and bigger rocket motors. If the weather cooperates I hope to do my Cert 1 flight this Saturday in North Branch, MN. I’ll fly one or both of my 29mm-motor-capable rockets, first on a “G” reload kit to make sure I know what I’m doing and then on an “H” reload, which I have to buy at the launch site. If everything works perfectly on my launch they sign my paperwork and I can buy “H” and “I” motors, which gets me up to 640 N-s of thrust. Currently I’ve only ever flown motors with about 80 N-s of thrust.

I don’t know if I will, but if I go all the way and get the Level 3 Certification I can buy motors with 14000 N-s of thrust!

People tend to fly bigger and bigger rockets on the bigger motors. This is obvious, in a sense, because these rockets can’t be flown on smaller motors. For me, though, once my rockets are big enough to fly interesting payloads, such as iPhones and digital video cameras, I’ll be more interested in speed and altitude than bigger rockets. I don’t have the budget or the engineering skill to make really big rockets. I do have the technical chops to do some cool stuff with payloads though.

This is fun!

TRA #012058

Norm Coleman is a piece of shit

Michael Koppelman, , 2 Comments

And you can quote me on that.

He apparently thinks if he claims victory somehow it is his to lose. No, Norm, an automatic recount has been triggered and YOU ARE NOT THE WINNER YET. I personally hope we send you back home to reinvent yourself into a kinder, gentler piece of shit. Maybe you could become a Democrat again? The wind is blowing that way, you know.

Norm Coleman is a piece of shit

Righties — lighten up

Michael Koppelman, 2 Comments

First let me say that I think most people who didn’t vote for Obama are being gracious and hopeful that we will live in good times in the coming years.

It’s funny to me, though, that the general sentiment I’m sensing from the disappointed Right is that they need to hold on to their checkbook. They think that they will be paying for new spending in higher taxes.

First — the debt is $10 trillion. Our GDP is about $15 trillion. So our debt load is 2/3 of our GDP. That is getting out of hand. Our budget is about $3 trillion, so our income should be $3 trillion and thus our debt is more than 3 times our nominal income. We gotta get this house in order. We need to do it by growing the economy, running a surplus budget and paying down the debt. If, at my company, we had 3x our gross income in debt, I’d be shocked and worried.

We need to run a surplus budget. We have to do it. Some balance of less spending, higher taxes and growth of the overall economy is the solution. We can’t raise taxes so high that we curtain economic growth. We can’t cut spending so much that programs and services are starved to inefficiency. The liberal solution to growing the economy is investment in shifting the entire bell curve of the standard of living, thereby giving a return on that investment in the form of a more robust economy. The Right still seem to believe in trickle down economics.

Second — the Right doesn’t necessarily do better under Republican administrations! They think they do, because capital gains taxes do tend to be higher under Democrats, but one needs look no further than 8 years of George W. Bush to see that alone is not a good measure. Would you rather pay a little more on capital gains and have your economy not tank? I think you would.

I think the unwillingness of affluent Americans to pay taxes is one of the least patriotic things I can think of. They want to have the world’s most powerful army and they do have the world’s most powerful economy and they still can’t do the math the reveals how crucial progressive taxation is to our success in these areas. It’s vital, it’s working and rather than be grateful for the privileged lives that they lead, they whine about taxes. It’s sad, really.

So lighten up, Righties. You’re going to be fine.

Righties — lighten up

God Bless America

Michael Koppelman, 4 Comments

I often say “bless you” to people, like when they bring me a cold frosty Summit Extra Pale Ale. I like the phrase, even though I’m an atheist. But I just want to take a moment to say THANK YOU JESUS! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

The United States of America did the right thing. We made history tonight but more importantly, we chose an excellent man for the job.

God Bless America.

God Bless America

Palin and McCain continue to be dumb

Michael Koppelman, 1 Comment

These people clearly can not be trusted with governance in the nation’s highest office. They’re too stupid or they hire people that are too stupid and either way, they’re fucked.

She vowed – as she has many times — that if she and running mate John McCain are elected, they will nix such fat that’s tacked onto budget bills by lawmakers eager to win points back home– projects that “really don’t make a whole lot of sense” and have “little or nothing to do with the public good. . . things like fruit fly research in Paris, France.”

“I kid you not,” she declared with a chuckle.

First of all, these retards continue to act as if France is anything but a major ally of the US. The US won our revolutionary war due to France. Shut the fuck up with this France bullshit.

But far more importantly, anyone with any knowledge of biology can tell you the important role that the fruit fly has played. The research she is denigrating here is highly useful:

One problem: the research she chose to highlight as a waste of cash just happens to have borne some, well, fruit. And for special needs kids, no less. Among such projects: a 2007 University of North Carolina study that researchers said might be key to better understanding the root of autism spectrum disorders.

The quotes are from Scientific American which goes on to list McCain’s own desperate attempts to paint other scientific research and science education as wasteful.

I’m anti-pork. I think earmarks are a stupid way to do things. We should fix that system, no question about it. But it is un-fucking-believable that Palin/McCain choose to attack those few and inexpensive earmarks that actually make sense. Palin lobbied for the bridge to nowhere, for Christ’s sake. She should shut her mouth before she prematurely ends her career. Oh wait, Republicans celebrate ignorance and stupidity, she’s gonna be a superstar!

Sorry, I’m venting a bit, but the desperate weenies who are clinging to God, guns and John McCain annoy me.

Palin and McCain continue to be dumb

Hedge funds and hemp

Michael Koppelman, , 1 Comment

Andrew Lahde, whom I have never heard of, apparently made a bunch of money betting against the sub-prime market. He recently closed his fund and wrote a “Jerry McGuire” letter saying so long and fuck you, basically.

He concludes the letter by talking about how the this nation has its head up its ass in regards to hemp and marijuana. He is, of course, completely correct. But I mention it because the media, in all of their stupidity, take his arguments and, by trying to be funny, expose the very ridiculous thinking he is arguing against. For example, one headline is “Quitting, and rolling a fattie…” and another “Millionaire puffs up hemp uses”. You can’t advocate for hemp or decriminalization of marijuana without some idiot calling you a stoner.

The US approach to the hemp issue is completely, 100% retarded. Yet regardless of who brings it up the pot smoking jokes come out, undermining the utter validity of the arguments. You can be a complete drunk, that’s A-OK, but mention marijuana and you are obviously some drug pusher.

So, fuck you, Andrew Willis, and your oh-so-funny headline. Thank you for taking us off the point once again.

Hedge funds and hemp

Powell sums it up

Michael Koppelman, , 2 Comments

Collin Powell, that left-wing socialist un-American loon has done it again.

On Palin:

I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president

On the rat-bastard Republicans:

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said: such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim; he’s a Christian, has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, “What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?” The answer’s “No, that’s not America.” Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he’s Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

On the economic crisis:

I have especially watched, over the last six or seven weeks, as both of them have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we are in, and coming out of the conventions.

And I must say that I’ve gotten a good measure of both. In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to how to deal with the economic problems that we’re having, and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me. I got the sense that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had.

On McCain’s campaign:

I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently — or his campaign ads — on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about.

This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign, but Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robo-calls going on around the country, trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted? What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate.

I agree with Powell on this one.

Powell sums it up