An article discussing a theoretical form of aluminum (via a certain crystalline arrangement) with a bulk density of only 0.61 grams per cubic centimeter… meaning it would float. The researchers behind this study haven’t actually produced any, so it’s not certain that it can be done on any sort of scale.
The research paper is paywalled, so I can’t tell if the researchers have predicted what the mechanical properties of the stuff would be. *If* it is anything like conventional aluminum, it would make for some interesting applications, especially if it has interesting thermal properties. But it’s metastable, which means that it *could* fall apart rather suddenly, potentially energetically. Quite likely what it means is that the low density aluminum would sit there and be well behaved until some external force came along – a temperature increase, water, oxygen, a whack with a hammer, foul language, a stern glance – and then the crystalline structure folds up like a university dean confronted with a pack of feral SJWs and the density goes back to normal.
Some fellers are working on nano-satellite “kits,” and have set up a Kickstarter to fund the project. The end result will be Raspberry Pi computer powered little satellite simulators that will – at the upper end – apparently be launched atop sounding-type rockets. The people behind this project had the good sense to have me produce a 12X18 cyanotype blueprint of a diagram of the original Sputnik satellite to serve as one of the funding rewards.
The Kickstarter page is currently a bit lean on details, but I’m told they’re going to flesh it out in coming days. Take a look:
In short, someone driving by claimed to have seen something meteor-like strike the mountain in roughly the place where there was later a fire. So… maybe.
Hmmm…
Of course, more boring explanations include a flare, fireworks, some other form of pyrotechnics and/or incendiary device; or nothing at all, the guy didn’t see anything relevant.
The pilot episode, as discussed, did not inspire. And by making the rest of the season unavailable for me to watch, CBS hasn’t gone out of their way to make me want to catch up on the show.
However… according to this video, the show *may*actually wind up being something I would actually want to see. According to the theory, the USS Discovery doesn’t work so much for Starfleet, as for Section 31.
Some videos of the suite that the Mandalay Bay shooter was in, taken by prior inhabitants. This suite is *huge.*
In the grand scheme of things, the question “what do we do with the room” seems pretty minor, compared to the scope of the carnage and the likely political ramifications from those who will try to ride this travesties coat-tails to further their grip on power. But still, it’s an interesting question: what does Mandalay Bay *do* with the room? Once it has been swept by the cops, the windows replaced and any other damage fixed up… do they return it to service? Do they put anyone who requests it on a watch list? Do they turn the place into a museum of sorts? Or do they make the room unavailable, either perpetually or for some number of years? I have no idea what the economics of a place like this is. If the room is locked off, is it going to be an important economic impact to the hotel? Or just a minor blip? Seems like it might be a decent enough place to serve as a storage room.
Economics is going to be important to Mandalay Bay in the coming years. Far as I can tell, they did nothing wrong here; they simply rented a room to someone they probably rented to many times before. Hotels don’t run renters baggage through X-ray machines or otherwise go pawing through it like the junk jugglers at the TSA. Still, you *know* the lawyers are salivating over the chance to sue the bejeebers out of Mandalay Bay… they have the deep pockets, after all.
Unless I’ve missed some recent news, there *still* isn’t clue one about what this guys motives were. He went to a *lot* of trouble, with considerable planning, time, effort and expense devoted to carrying out the massacre. This implies a form of rationality, even if he was crazy; he didn’t just snap. But usually the authorities can reasonably quickly figure out what the perpetrators motives were. Revenge? In this case, for what, and against who? Religion? Politics? Neither seem in play. Was he just in a “my life sucks, I’m’a gonna lash out” spiral? At least so far nothing seems to indicate that… his finances were apparently good; he’d just sent a hundred grand to the Philippines (presumably his girlfriend, who was there at the time).
So, in lieu of any actual facts, here’s my Whackadoodle Conspiracy Theory:
1: His finances in fact weren’t so good. His gambling had gotten out of control, and he’d gotten in trouble with the mob.
2: The mob realized that he was about as boring a person as possible, with virtually no digital footprint.
3: The crime rate has been dropping for the last twenty years, while gun rights have been increasing. This is bad news for criminals, organized and otherwise.
4: So some clever mobsters come up with a plan: force this guy to carry out a senseless massacre (using, say, threats against his girlfriend) using “assault weapons.” The mobsters know that by doing so, using a guy with no known politics or religion, that their useful idiots in the press and the government will immediately latch on to the story and use it to try to ram through new anti-gun regulations.
5: With mob-luck, whole classifications of firearms will get banned. The civilians will be disarmed; the criminal element will be free to relive the good old days of the high crime rate.
6: Profit!
Likelihood of this being the real story: approximately zero. But nothing much else seems to fit yet, so…
On one of the great tragic days in American history, we’ve got us a college (adjunct) professor deciding that the thing to do is to make it worse. Reports are she had an “episode.”
Sources @USC are saying a professor made students call to report shots fired. @LAPDHQ confirms no active shooter & professor is arrested. pic.twitter.com/zWNQXvaJWu
The LG “Wallpaper” TV is astonishingly thin… apparently 0.15 inches for a TV 57.1 inches by 32.5 inches. It’s also a little pricey, but, yikes. Look at it. The “newspads” shown in “2001” can’t be too far off.
Here’s a vid of the technology from nearly three years ago showing the screen (a smaller, lower-rez prototype) actually being rolled up:
This sort of looks like soon a 4K TV screen will be actually *printed.* Think of a TV screen that rolls up like an old movie projector screen… say, a tube six feet long containing a TV ten and a half feet wide, rolls up into a tube two or three inches in diameter, store it away when not in use, cover a whole wall when you want it. or further down the line, actually cheap enough to use it as *actual* wallpaper. Cover your ceiling with it, mount high rez cameras on your roof looking up, show the day/night sky.
I’m constantly hearing about how Americans are too freaked out about terrorism, how Europeans have a more laid back, adult and rational response to it, how they just get on with life, don’t freak out about it. And then this happens:
In short, some guy started reading aloud from the Bible on a British commuter train, so other passengers actually forced the doors open to get away from him.
So, someone opened fire on a vast music festival crowd on the Vegas Strip with a fully automatic weapon. So far, two dead, 24 wounded; the police report that the shooter is dead. The videos I’ve seen on CNN seem to indicate that the shooter fired a magazine, reloaded, fired another magazine, reloaded, emptied a third. Hard to tell how many rounds were fired, but if those were standard capacity thirty round mags, that’s 90 rounds. One quick lesson to learn here: full auto is an inefficient way to carry out a massacre… 90 rounds shot into a crowd with something like ~30 people shot.
UPDATE: the police just issued a statement… at least *20* dead, 100 injured. A good chance that a number of the dead & injured weren’t shot, but trampled. They know who the shooter was, but are so far refusing to ID him, other than he was a local. They are looking for one Marilou Danley. I’ve already seen internet sleuthery that has located the online info about one such woman and her very leftist -apparent-husband (who the net-sleuths have determined based on nothing that he is the shooter), but given the poor track record of such things (recall the Charlottesville initial reporting), it is at best unwise to start pointing at individuals based on just a name.
ANOTHER UPDATE: 50+ dead, 200+ injured. Shooter ID’ed as one Stephen C. Paddock. Looks like this is the worst mass shooting in US history.
OK, so, now comes the time for rampant unsubstantiated speculating for political purposes. The weapon was full auto, which is an unusual occurrence; was it a legal full auto weapon, shot by the owner or someone who procured a stolen one? Was it an illegally modified semi-auto? Was it a legally modified bump-fire conversion, or some sort of crank-fired gun? The gunfire *seems* to be slightly variable in rate of fire, so maybe the latter.
The shooter is reportedly dead, and reportedly alone. So was the shooter a lone whackjob? Was he a Trump supporting white supremacist… shooting into a crowd of country music loving white folks for some reason? An Antifa/BLM anti-Trumper/anti-white-folk terrorist? An ISIS supporter? This being Vegas, other options are available. Was he some guy who was perfectly fine a day or two ago, but went to Vegas for a fun weekend and wound up losing his lifes fortune playing the slots and it drove him over the edge? Some guy who’s upset about the Reptilian Conspiracy (again, this is Vegas)?
My unwarranted speculation: not a jihadi. This shooting was carried out at some considerable distance; jihadis seem to prefer to kill people up close and personal.
Right now there are a *lot* of people saying “please don’t be one of mine, please don’t be one of mine…” And when the identity of the shooter is released, there will be a lot of people going “Yay, ammunition I can use against my political opponents!” and lots of people going “Damn, I can’t use that.”
Apropos of nothing: CNN is interviewing a lot of people who were on the scene, as you’d expect. And a *lot* of them seem to be Canadians. Is Vegas particularly popular among Canucks?
