Crew launches to the International Space Station resume successfully after the failure of MS-10 in October. The crew of that mission will end up flying to the space station with NASA astronaut Christina Koch in February. Meanwhile, Russian cosmonauts performed an EVA to investigate damage to the MS-09 spacecraft, which was discovered to be leaking in August.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at the asteroid Bennu, beginning a three-year observation of the body which will conclude with an Earth sample-return in 2023.
Cassini data confirms that Saturn's rings are a transient phenomenon and will disappear within a few hundred million years.
Virgin Galactic completed a powered test flight that, by some definitions, crossed the boundary into space. SpaceShipTwo achieved an altitude of 83 kilometers (52 miles) which is above the line the US Air Force uses, but not above the Kármán Line. I'm torn on whether to count this towards my 2018 prediction that astronauts would launch from the United States. The pilots will be receiving commercial astronaut wings from the FAA, but I should have explicitly stated what counts.
More good news: the Federal Railroad Administration approved new rules last month that would bring the regulations on US passenger rail cars in line with European standards. This will allow American railways (i.e. Amtrak) to import passenger cars directly from Europe and Asia. Currently, imported cars require extensive modification even though the foreign standards result in lighter and safer rail cars.
Ever wanted to read Rationality: From AI to Zombies in physical book form? Now you can, at least part of it. MIRI is releasing reworked versions of two volumes as ebooks and physical printings. I'm looking forward to having the entire collection on my shelf someday.
That said, there's still a lot of good material in the Less Wrong archives. For example, Yudkowsky discussing the tradeoff between popularity and correctness.
Scott Alexander looks at the polling data and concludes that "Trumpist" positions have gotten less popular since Donald Trump launched his Presidential campaign. In a related story, support for the president among the active duty troops has been declining continuously, while support for General Mattis remained high. Note that both of these articles were published before Mattis's resignation as Secretary of Defense and the government shutdown.
Gwern discusses Littlewood's Law as applied to global media and how paying attention to fantastically rare events can break our brains. Further reading: Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People. The title is a bit hyperbolic, but gets at the idea that many active internet denizens are way, way removed from the societal baseline.
Ranked-choice voting wins in Maine as incumbent Rep. Bruce Poliquin drops his lawsuits against Jared Golden, who won the ME-02 Congressional race on later-round preferences.
Ozy Brennan discusses ways that the effective altruist movement can make itself more attractive to centrists and conservatives.
Why do success and failure compound? To put it simply, momentum. This seems relevant to some of the problems my family recently overcame, and hopefully can avoid repeating.
