To the Moon!

Bob Zubrin, who wrote "The Case For Mars" is setting his sights a little lower.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/05/zubrin-moon-direct-plan.html

Bajau: The Undersea Hunters

The Bajau people of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Phillipines live their whole lives in and around the ocean. They can dive for 13 minutes at a time to depths of 200 feet and their bodies are different from the rest of us. In particular, they have larger spleens and eyes adapted to water.

In Malaysia, they are banned from the land, so they have made villages on stilts.

The people has a founding myth of a mission to escort a princess, possibly to a marriage. They fail in their duty to deliver her safely. Through shame or banishment, they never return home but wander the ocean for the generations since.

Visualizing Mortality

The Author is 34 and expecting to live to 90. If you are 17 expecting to live to 73, you have half as many X's and exactly the same number of winters. Your odds of living past 73 are pretty good but the shocking lack of infiniteness is unchanged.

Notably, the number of days you get to spend with your parents is probably already past the halfway mark. OTOH, the number of days you deliberately choose to spend with your parents may be much, much below halfway.

Spring 2018 Bridge: Lilliput

For years, I’ve been telling students that under my rules small bridges might have an advantage. For rules like this, it’s a pretty big advantage.

Usually, they all ignore me. Last time, a few didn’t ignore me. This year, six groups took my little advice to heart, and then some. 

Things got a teeny-bit ridiculous.