Hmmm…
Nov 122017
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Nov 122017
Why, yes, it’s funny. And it would annoy the bejeebers out of SJWs.
Slight potential of being NSFW. So don’t look at the still image below.
Nov 122017
Not a new idea, but one sure to rile the conspiracy theorists and panic mongers:
Nasa’s [sic] ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano
Basic idea: drill down towards the magma chamber, pump cool water down; water sucks heat from magma and races back up the system as 600-degree steam, which is then used to turn turbines to generate electricity. Energy is created while the risk is reduced. So goes the theory.
The basic idea is reasonably sound. The biggest problem is simply the scale of the problem:the amount of heat in the magma chamber is *vast.* And the depths they’d need to drill are equally vast… on the order of ten kilometers (which is ha-ha-ha-no level of depth). The cost of the project is estimated at $3.46 billion…. peanuts, really, compared to FedGuv spending. The power generation potential is also vast, on the scale of 6 gigawatts of thermal energy. Thousands of years would be required to actually cool the magma chamber to where it’s safe.
And there are detractors…
No, NASA Isn’t Going to Drill to Stop Yellowstone from Erupting
Nov 122017
Anyone who has paid thirty seconds of attention to the news in the last few weeks has been unable to miss all the reports of powerful men being called out for sexual harassment on up to assault, by both men and women in lesser positions of power. Most of the complaints have been against Hollywood types, but also several political types.
It’s a sad but undeniable fact that when the accused is someone who you like or is on your side politically, you are more likely to respond with skepticism about the accusations than if the accused is someone you dislike or disagree with. A truly honest person would be skeptical of *all* claims until either the accused confesses, sufficient evidence is produced, or the accusers tales are properly vetted. But let’s be honest, it’s *really* easy to believe that some of these power-mad fantasy-land-dwellers are scumbags, and so the general response to these accusations is to just accept them at face value.
In the current political climate, it’s probably accurate to suggest that a sexual harassment accusation is more PR-damaging than an accusation of conventional physical violence. If, say, Kevin Spacey had been accused of getting drunked up and pummeling some people 30 years ago, I doubt there’d be much hoopla. How many rap stars actually *bolster* their “cred” with an actual felony rap sheet? But things are what they are; if you are suddenly announced to have been pervy decades ago, you become culturally toxic *now.*
As a consequence, we’ve got Ridley Scott rushing to replace Spacey in a movie due out in *weeks.* Netflix promptly shut down and cancelled production of Spacey’s “House of Cards.” Louis CK’s new movie “I Love You Daddy” has had its premiere cancelled, and may get stuffed down the memory hole; Louis CK was working on a new animated series with TBS called “The Cops,” this has now been cancelled. The Weinstein company may wind up going down in flames, even after they fired the guy the company is named after.
Lets assume the accusations are correct (and in Louis CK’s case, he’s confessed that they are). So you hear about this guy acting badly, and as a result his career blows up in his face, and your initial response is likely some variation of schadenfreude. “To hell with that guy, good riddance.”
But here’s the thing: these movies, TV shows and whatnot are not just the products of that one guy. The cast and crew of “House of Cards” are now SOL. There is every possibility that there was an actor or makeup artist or *somebody* in one of these now-trashed shows that that job that they busted their butts on was going to be their big break. Maybe the Weinstein Company had just signed a deal to produce some young filmmakers dream project, and now it’s vanished like a fart in the wind.
OK, here’s the ponderable. Should the bad behavior of One Guy torpedo the work of hundreds or thousands? Let’s put it in terms that readers of this blog might be more directly amenable to: let’s hypothesize that Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk is accused of the same sort of thing. Should Blue Origin or SpaceX dry up and blow away as a result? If Seth Macfarlane turns out to *gasp* convert to a Trump supporter, should “The Orville” be promptly cancelled? Heck: there is a small but non-zero chance that my own chance for fame and fortune evaporated with “Man Conquers Space,” my role as technical advisor, prop maker and vehicle designer gone due to the movie project folding because… well, reasons are unclear but claims are made and unsubstantiated in the comments section HERE.
Granted, I’m not really seeing a whole of of alternative in a lot of these cases. Hollywood is by definition all about Public Relations; when someone suddenly falls out of favor, their careers often instantly tank. Charlie Sheen, that kid who was on 2.5 Men, Mel Gibson, OJ Simpson, Bill Cosby, Paula Deen, even Fatty Arbuckle Way Back In the Friggen’ Day all found that accusations (some true, some unfounded, some on full public display) were enough to end careers essentially overnight. You tick off the public, the public may well decide to stop throwing money at you. But when these people go down, they take a lot of other folks with them.
So: when one actor or director or producer turns out to be an accused scumbag… what should happen with the work they’re doing? Work that hundreds of others rely on for paychecks, and millions of others rely on for entertainment?
Nov 112017
A few weeks ago, some artwork was put on ebay showing an alternate concept for the Lunar Roving Vehicle. This one was apparently sold as being optionally manned, which would certainly be a useful feature. Especially if it could be teleoperated from Earth after the crew has gone home. Note that one of the illustrations shows the unmanned rover towing a two-wheeled cart loaded with nuclear power generator (an RTG); similar RTGs are shown hanging off the sides of an unmanned LRV, and two RTGs are shown in the distance in the illustration showing unmanned-to-manned conversion. What *may* be intended here is that the unmanned version would drive around under RTG power and charge up batteries; for manned use the RTGs are left in the distance and the things operates purely under battery power. If returned to RTG/unmanned prior to the crew leaving, then the LRV would have virtually unlimited range. With enough time, an LRV could even drive to another landing site and be there in time for a new crew to land and make use of it.
Nov 112017
NPR today ran an hour of interviews on the subject of “the West,” in the context of the clash of civilization between The West and, well, the non-West. The first interview was with Victor Davis Hanson who did a good job of defining just what is “The West.” The concept of The West is much like that of the United States… neither are based strictly on a geographic region, nor of a particular ethnicity or religion. Instead, *anyone,* no matter where born or raised or how indoctrinated, can become a Westerner by accepting the basic precepts of Westernism. Thus places like Japan and South Korea can be reasonable described as “Western.”
A New Clash Of Civilizations?
The precepts Hanson puts forward include:
- Free market economics
- Protection of private property
- Free speech
- Free expression
- Secularism
- Diversity of religion
- Emancipation of women
- Trust in rationalism and scientific inquiry
- Induction rather than deductive or religious superstition
Hanson also wrote about these assumptions a month and a half ago regarding the current fad for stuffing Columbus Day down the memory hole:
It is fashionable to trash the civilization that created Columbus as destructive and pathological, but those who do so often have never experienced the alternative first-hand or at length, and assume that their own prosperity, security, and protected freedoms are birthrights rather than fragilities that exist largely only in the West and Westernized Asia or emanate only from the Western anomalies of self-criticism, secular rationalism, unfettered inquiry, free expression, constitutional government, free-market economics, private property and religious tolerance.
Hanson ended that piece with this important observation:
In some strange reductionist and iconic way, the symbolic world of the Aztecs is romanticized — and left far behind; the world of Columbus is still demonized but constantly sought out.
This being NPR, though, this first good interview that defends the worth, value and importance of The West and argues for the preservation of it is followed by a series of interviews that smear the West and Westerners and those who support The West as being Nazis, rapists and Islamophobes. Because Of Course.
The final piece is about the history of contact between Elizabethan England and the Ottoman Empire. It’s interesting, but there’s one particularly telling bit. A British history professor, who has written a book on the topic, is asked by the interviewer to tell of the “wonderful stories” of Englishmen who “freely and openly converted to Islam.” And what’s the story we get? An English merchant named Samson Rolly (sic?) was kidnapped by Turkish pirates circa 1570, forcibly converted to Islam, *castrated,* and somehow winds up being the chief eunuch and treasurer of Algiers. Around ten years later an English ambassador asks Samson (now with a new name) if he wants to go home, and the guy decides to stay where he is. This “wonderful” story, which the professor chuckles his way through and calls “funny,” is the story of someone kidnapped, mutilated, brainwashed and deep within the throes of Stockholm Syndrome. And yet, it’s those who want to defend the West from exactly this sort of thing that are the bad guys in the bulk of the piece… and in a whole lot of modern culture.
Guh.
Well, the first bit with Hanson is certainly worth a listen. If the embedded player doesn’t show up below, you can download the audio file HERE.
Nov 092017
Now this could get interesting, if true:
Trump thinks Scientology should lose its tax-exempt status
It certainly makes sense that a President would want the CoS to lose its tax exempt status, but I have doubts that a President can actually *do* anything about it. That sort of thing is up to the IRS,and as the article suggests, a President making a stink about a particular case could sorta poison the well. This is, of course, exactly the sort of thing Trump likes to do, though, such as chiming in on Twitter about criminal cases yet to come before the court, thus promptly giving the defense attorneys a perfect chance to make a case that the jury has been tampered with.
The Sexual Harassment News Extravaganza Rolls on
art, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ
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Nov 092017
Two things came out today-ish:
1: Judge Roy Moore has been accused of being pretty frikken’ creepy…
Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32
It’s just an accusation at this time, one Judge Moore has denied. But then, Judge Roy Moore has never really been known for having good judgement; he spent oodles of taxpayer dollars on a clearly unconstitutional endorsement of religion on government grounds. This new development of course throws a wrench into his plans for the special election for the open US Senate seat in Alabama set for December.
2: Also set for December is the release of Ridley Scott’s next movie. A major character in the movie was played by Kevin Spacey, who has suddenly become quite unpopular in Hollywood for being what a whole bunch of people in Hollywod long knew he was. “Was,” because this movie, due to be released in only six weeks, is having all the Spacey scenes reshot with Christopher Plummer in the same role.
Kevin Spacey to Be Replaced by Christopher Plummer in ‘All the Money in the World’
If Ridley Scott can pull this off, it’ll be *genius.* For starters, the publicity: having Spacey in the movie might or might not have damaged the box office, but the PR value of pulling off the technical miracle of reshooting and re-editing the movie in a month and a half can only help. Secondly, if Spacey/Plummers scenes are substantial, then this will be an argument that major movies don’t need to take years to accomplish, but months or even just weeks.
Nov 092017
So, a supernova is a star going *BANG.* It’s either a supermassive star undergoing its final collapse and rebound, or a white dwarf of neutron star stripping atmosphere off a co-orbiting regular star until enough hydrogen has built up on the surface to undergo a fusion flash, or two neutron stars colliding… something like that. it’s supposed to be a relatively quick flash, then a fade into some kind of dimness. What it’s NOT supposed to be is an explosion brighter than a billion suns that lasts *years.*
Bizarre 3-Year-Long Supernova Defies Our Understanding of How Stars Die
The event occurred in a small irregular galaxy some 500 million lightyears away. interestingly, another supernova was detected in the same spot in 1954, but it’s difficult to suggest that they are necessarily the same object… might have been another supernova within the same galaxy. But *this* event has had an extremely unusual light curve, indicating something horrifically powerful and ridiculously long-lasting:
Compare the areas under the curves. Not only is this thing five or so times brighter than it should be, it’s lasting perhaps five or ten times longer. But the spectrum of the light curve indicates it’s a standard Type II-P supernova, which shouldn’t act like this.
To me this event seems like an atomic bomb. Not, y’know, like an actual atomic bomb, but instead one of the atomic bombs described by H.G. Wells in his 1914 novel “The World Set Free.” his atomic bombs were utterly unlike what actually wound up appearing. His A-Bombs were more like magical reactors: they burned for *years* emitting heat, light and radiation. In essence, his atomic bombs were reactors in meltdown. Perhaps that’s what’s going on with this supernova… instead of “bang” and its done, there’s some sort of “meltdown” going on. What that could possibly be, I’ve no idea.
Nov 092017
In all the stories, the robots rise up and try to wipe out mankind because they’ve been treated poorly. So you’d think that mankind would learn from a century of literature, movies an TV on the subject. But NOOOOOOO.
So a self-driving shuttle bus service starts up in Las Vegas, and what happens? Within a day a human driver plows into the thing.
And so it begins.