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Jun 062017
 

For those unaware, “Cowboy Bebop” was a late-1990’s Japanese anime TV series. Set in the late 21st century, it follows a small crew of bounty hunters as they, well, hunt bounties across the Solar System. For a lot of people, the jazz soundtrack had them hooked. For me, it was the interesting world building. Earth was trashed a few decades ago when a “gate” (the large orbital “stargates” that let ships travel FTL from world to world) being tested on the Moon went kerflooey. But society at this point seems to have moved on, with colonies on Mars and Ganymede and such, with a number of vast rotating O’Neill colonies.

Calling it an animated prototype for “Firefly” would not be entirely uncalled-for.

It did suffer from the same WTF-itis that assails the majority of anime, with a lot of silly-weird Just Cuz,but it was nonetheless an overall damned fine series.

And now… live action:

‘Cowboy Bebop’ Cult Anime TV Series Gets U.S. Live-Action Remake By Tomorrow Studios, Midnight Radio & ‘Thor’ Writer

No data on what network or who’s going to star in it. Keanu Reeves was a whole lot of people’s favorite to play the main character of Spike back in the day when fans discussed a hypothetical live action adaptation, but Keanu is a few decades too old by this point. If the series is faithful to the environments of the original it’s going to be *expensive.*

 Posted by at 11:08 am
Jun 052017
 

Yes, you too can have nuclear power in your own home. Seems to actually work. Only one problem…

In short, little sealed glass vials of beta-emitting tritium with a phosphor coating on the inside to convert the beta radiation into visible light are sandwiched between two PV cells. This leads to a battery that puts out just enough juice to power very small devices. Cool! The problem is that those tritium vials cost about $15 to $30 a pop, so you’re looking at more than $30 in parts to make said nuclear battery. Is it cost effective? Is it fundamentally practical? Mmmm… probably not. But for less than a hundred bucks, you end up being able to boast that your thermometer or some such is Nuclear Powered.

Here’s another, talkier video describing much the same thing:

 

 

 

 Posted by at 11:23 am
Jun 042017
 

Probable correction:

Color me stunned, but the article is written in a way that seems to exaggerate the actual claims. For the moment I assume that the stage didn’t so much “splash down softly” as “plummet from the sky at terminal velocity.”

——

Bwuh?

NASA Considering Using Pre-flown SpaceX Rockets for Cargo Flights

SpaceX has also had success recently in recovering Falcon 9 second stages and payload fairings, the nose cones that protect satellites and other spacecraft during launch. After its work was done on Saturday, for example, the Falcon 9 second stage apparently splashed down softly in the ocean southwest of Australia, Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, said during Saturday’s press conference.

Hold up. The second stage soft-landed in the ocean??? Way to bury the lede, guys.

 

 Posted by at 11:15 am
Jun 032017
 

They launched a Dragon resupply module to the ISS today and successfully recovered the first stage. Not new. But this is the Dragon second flight; that’s new. They recover it and it’ll be *really* new.

SpaceX sticks 11th rocket landing after launching first used Dragon capsule

Later this summer SpaceX will do their first Falcon 9 heavy launch, and they are apparently planning to *try* to recover the second stage, though they are apparently not very confident of success. But eventually they’ll get it, and then they’ll have a reusable first stage, reusable second stage and mostly reusable payload.

 

 Posted by at 4:15 pm
Jun 032017
 

Yet no confirmation, might have just been an accident. But it sure sounds familiar…

London police report ‘incident’ on London Bridge

Of course, accidents usually don’t involve stabbings. But you know, Europeans are a funny lot…

PANIC AT LONDON BRIDGE

London Bridge chaos as ‘several people mown down’ by van sparking station evacuation and armed cop response

Eye witnesses report that victims were receiving CPR after being ‘stabbed’

 


 

 Posted by at 4:07 pm