I normally don’t post short articles that just link to other places, but I ran across two posts recently that say exactly what I was going to try to say in coming weeks.  Rather than stab at the topics badly, I thought it would be better to just refer you to them.  So here they are.

Bryan Jones wrote a wistful account of the end of the space shuttle program, along with his personal photo of Atlantis’ final approach.  I saw the first and the last shuttle launches live on TV (as a 10-year-old, my mother woke me at 5:30 in the morning to watch the first one), and I feel, as he does, that our lack of commitment to a space program is a shame.  For those who wonder what we gained from spending money on the shuttle program, he lists some of the advances the shuttle program has given us, such as cell phone cameras and LED lights.

Optimus wrote a little on why he has pulled back from the demoscene a bit, and I urge all my scener friends to read this because he sums up very closely the state of mind I’ve had in the last couple of years.  In fact, his history mirrors mine a little, including how I felt when I first discovered the scene, how I treated the scene the first few years, why I attempted some scene “outreach” at times, and why I mostly hold back.

So there you go.