David Dvorkin @DavidDvorkin@qoto.org

#introduction
Before retiring, I was an aerospace engineer (Apollo, Viking Mars lander), software developer, and tech writer. But that was to pay the bills. I think of myself as a writer -- mostly sf, some horror, some mystery, some (yet unpublished) fantasy. Lots of details at www.dvorkin.com

My wife and I also help writers self-publish. You can find out more at www.dldbooks.com

In theory, I should be writing much more now that I'm retired. In practice, that's not happening. I blame the Internet.

I wish people would stop referring to it as vaccine skepticism. It's science denialism. It's the rejection of generations of magnificant scientific progress and the embrace of ignorance.

Two months from now, the crazies will be in control.

One advantage to my not having become a big-name writer is that no young writer has met me, his writing idol, only to be gravely disillusioned and disappointed. So there's that.

This will be remembered as the election where a majority of Americans stopped even pretending to pay lip service to their country's ideals.

In the supermarket today, I saw what might well be the stupidest t-shirt I've ever seen. On the front it said "Trump". There might have been more, but that's all I saw as the man walked by. On the back, there was a painting of Trump and Vance as tough guys in string ties and black hats, with a vaguely TV-Old-West background. Beneath that, it said, "I'm voting for the outlaw and the hillbilly." The orange buffoon's idiot followers live in a world of TV-show illusion.

What does it mean if my profile can't be found when I click on it? Have I ceased to exist?

Back in 2019, I published my Apollo memoir, WHEN WE LANDED ON THE MOON, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Every now and then, it still sells a copy. I think of it as the little rocket that could. It's a bit like Voyager. Just when it seems to be dead, it transmits more data, or in this case royalties. Putt, putt, putt.

I (white) thought that when Obama was elected, but I was quickly disillusioned.

Five years and five days ago, for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, I published a short memoir of my time working at NASA on the Apollo program, titled "When We Landed on the Moon".

It's not the catchiest title, but it is much snazzier than the more descriptive title "How I Worked at a Desk at NASA During Apollo Writing Fortran Code and Entering Lots of Data on Punch Cards and Poring over Piles of Computer Printout".

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1080633405/

This is America's Enabling Act.

People who sneered at science fiction are now living it, but they still sneer at science fiction.

It should have said "terminate a pregnancy". I couldn't edit it to correct it, so I added a comment to that effect.

That should be "to terminate a pregnancy".

I'd edit that toot if I could.

It won't happen, but we need this amendment to the Constitution:

"The ability of citizens to control their own bodies being fundamental to a free society, the right to terminate an abortion shall not be abridged."

The next president of Mexico will be Claudia Sheinbaum -- a Jewish woman with a science/engineering PhD. We might get Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders, 82, will seek a fourth Senate term. I hope no one who supports him is grumbling about Joe Biden's age.

I shaved my head in preparation for my dermatologist appointment tomorrow, and now I'm Lex Luthor without the money.

I bet the first company to sell a smart mirror that shows you as you wish you were instead of as you actually are will make a fortune.

I haven't had hate e-mail for a while. I just got one from someone who goes by UnitedStatesof Jermerica.

Subject: You and your family are fucking rejects

Contents of the e-mail: family of leftists cucks - add that to your shitty website trash rofl

Thanks for the energetic example, Joe, from all the other (sensible) old people out there. We clap for you. Carefully, of course, because of the arthritis in our hands.