Jun 302008
 

A commonly discussed bit of aerospace artwork is a North American Aviation painting of a scramjet-powered research vehicle that seems to bear some faint resemblance to the X-15. This is something I’ve personally been looking for more info on for some years, basically without result. All i’ve found on it is a high-quality copy of the painting itself from the Boeing archive… and a three-view of extremely dubious provenance that purports to be a 1/72 scale drawing of the beast. However, I suspect that the drawing is in fact “fan art” produced by someone looking at that same painting. Still, it’s all I’ve found.

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 Posted by at 11:15 pm
Jun 302008
 

After a long, tiring, hot and expensive day, when I was nearly home I stopped and took some photos including this one of a nearby agricultural aquaduct.

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 Posted by at 10:35 pm
Jun 282008
 

Koshka is my least photogenic cat; unlike Raedthinn or Tak, she’s not prone to silliness or looking goofy. She is generally the very model of feline dignity, and she dislikes cameras, and doesn’t like showing off.

Still, she’s got those really rockin’ laser-beam eyeballs.

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 Posted by at 9:09 pm
Jun 282008
 

A few APR subscribers (and former subscribers) have complained that they don’t care for the electronic version, that they liked the paper version better. Hey, I agree. I vastly prefer reading an actual paper honest-to-Odin book to text on a screen. However, confirmation that sometimes electronic is better came yesterday when I had the three most recent issues of APR printed off at a print shop. These were printed single-sided, with pages with color being printed in color, and 11X17 pages printed on 11X17 pages. Total price? More than $40. And there wasn’t even binding, never mind postage. A full years worth would, after switching to double-sided and with volume discounts, likely still cost more than $60 simply to print off.  For a while I’ve been contemplating having a few copies made of Volume 1 printed complete and bound, but with binding and whatnot, the selling price would have to be on the order of $100. And who the hell would pay *that?* Sure, it’d be more than 500 pages (damn, that’s a lot when I think about it) and probably technically worth it… but a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.

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Now, if anyone is actually interested in a bound version of Volume 1, let me know.

 Posted by at 12:23 pm
Jun 262008
 

The Supreme Court has handed down their decision on the Heller case. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, Heller was about whether or not individuals actually have the right to own firearms, as laid out pretty clearly in the 2nd Amendment. Well, amazingly enough, the US Supreme Court has determined that individuals do:

Answering a 127-year old constitutional question, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have a gun, at least in one’s home. The Court, splitting 5-4, struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession. Although times have changed since 1791, Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority, “it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

Two things immediately jump out:

1: Why wasn’t it 9-0?

2: If there was some question whether or no it was the USSC’s role to pronounce the 2nd Amendment extinct… is there a similar question regarding the 1st Amendment???

 Posted by at 10:50 am
Jun 262008
 

A couple of the local farmcat kittens, luxuriating on my back deck with the aptly-named Mommacat.

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 Posted by at 3:29 am