A photo from about a month ago as the heat started to build up:
Aug 092017
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Aug 092017
It can get you fired. Additionally, it can get you lied about in the media.
Here Are All The Media Outlets Blatantly Lying About The Google Memo
This is one of those tricky situations. On the one hand, Google, like YouTube, is a private company and is not bound by the 1st Amendment, and can fire people for any cause they like, including having politically unpopular (even if only unpopular with certain people) opinions or politics. On the other hand, communications companies like Google, Twitter and YouTube are so powerful, dominant and important to public discourse that when they decide to censor political opinions, there is not a whole lot that those so censored can really do about it. Could a million right wingers get together to buy up enough stock to repopulate the board of directors of these companies? Somehow I doubt it, but that might be the only way to keep these sort of companies from shutting down politics that’s right of far left.
Aug 082017
Not quite at the “help me, Obi Wan Kenobi” stage, but we’re getting there…
UPDATE: Well, maybe not so much. See comments…
Aug 082017
A prototype animatronic Lincoln head being put through its paces. While still not what you’d call entirely convincing, it displays a remarkable range of expressions. Most of which make you think ol’ Honest Abe is being forced to sit through an SJW’s presentation on the cisnormative heteronormative white supremacist patriarchy.
Aug 082017
If you’re a history completist, or some sort of weirdo, eBay has just the thing for ya:
Genuine APOLLO ERA NASA ANAL PROBE CHAIR
Aw, hamburgers…
Aug 072017
Eaglemoss sells a line of Star Trek ship display models; their list is now over 100, including not only the expected ships but also some pretty obscure ones. They cover all the series, including NuTrek… and soon, Discovery. Eaglemoss recently displayed 3D printed prototypes of the USS Discovery and USS Shenzhou, providing decent views of the new ships:
Comments:
- The Discovery looks pretty spiffy… except for those ridiculous cutouts in the primary hull.
- The Shenzhou looks just fine… for a post-Voyager ship. A pre-TOS design? Just no.
Aug 072017
I believe “well that’s just stupid” will be the defining phrase of the next generation, perhaps of the entire century. Consider:
Prof lets students choose own grades for ‘stress reduction’
If you feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, you can email the instructor indicating what grade you think is appropriate, and it will be so changed. No explanation is required, but it is requested that you consider waiting 24 hours before emailing the instructor.
If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group’s dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to the group members. Furthermore, you can request to discontinue all further group work and your grade will be based totally on non-group work.
Only positive comments about presentations will be given in class. Comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email.
Fortunately, this if for a course on “business data management” rather than something important like medicine or engineering. (Note: how to tell if a course of study is important? If the graduate gets out into the world and gets a job in that field and manages to screw up and people *die* as a result… the course was important.)
Honestly, I can’t tell if this is a dumbass prof who has decided to coddle his students, or if he’s a worn-down prof who has decided to throw in the towel…and let reality come down like a hammer on the lazy slobs who decide to take advantage of the option to arbitrarily bump up their own grades and to avid negative comments.
Aug 072017
Here’s an interesting article:
Why Are There No New Major Religions?
I think there’s a bit of pint-missing in the article. Yes, there hasn’t been a new religion on the scale of Islam or Christianity since the rise of Islam… but major world-girdling religions have always been *relatively* few, and most of them are *really* old. Setting aside the notion that “maybe religion X is the One True Religion,” the worlds major religions have gotten *really* good at providing what people seem to want from a religion. Thus there’s just not that much room in the market for new suppliers.
Still, the article has some interesting stuff in it, including descriptions of what happened to a recently invented new religion in Indonesia that has drawn thousands of adherents, mostly from former Muslims. You’ll be shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that Indonesia has laws that make it effectively illegal for Muslims to eave their faith.
Aug 072017
BWXT Awarded $18.8 Million Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Reactor Design Contract by NASA
NASA has apparently given reactor manufacturer a contract to design a next general nuclear thermal rocket engine, a modernized NERVA. This is in support of a manned mission to Mars.
While this is of course great news, it’s not exactly world-shattering in scope. A total of 15 employees are slated to work on the project. And given politics, the chances of a nuclear thermal rocket getting to the test stand are minimal, to say nothing of getting on a launch vehicle. It would be interesting if SpaceX got on board with the project, put its money where Musks mouth is. I’m sure SpaceX wants to design their own NTR, but they don’t have the decades of experience at actually designing reactors that BWXT has.
I will also point out, just before I go off into a corner and cry, that I interviewed at BWX for a job back in 1999.
Aug 062017
During the development of the Avro Arrow supersonic interceptor in the 1950’s, 3-meter-long scale models were lobbed to high speed atop solid rockets. The models were shot into Lake Ontario, where they sank and were lost to history. However, it looks like someone is goign to make an effort to find and recover them:
New Search For Avro Arrow Flight Models Lost 60 Years Ago in Lake Ontario Has Begun
I suspect if the models are found, they’ll be found in itty bitty bits. Smacking into water at Mach 1 is rarely good.