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Bricking up the mosque entrance

 Hmm..., news, religion, ಠ_ಠ  3 Responses »
Aug 302016
 

News out of Germany:

Far-Right blamed as entrance to mosque in Germany bricked up

The small northern German town of Parchim has only 150 Muslims and no dedicated mosque, so they meet in a transformer station. But someone bricked-up the entrance to said “mosque” with cinderblocks, and added a number of flyers explaining why. Terrible, just terrible. I mean, look at this:

Whatever happened to craftsmanship? To taking pride in doing a quality job? For the love of God, Montressor, learn basic bricklaying.

The fliers included things like quotes from Turkish president Erdogan: “The mosques are our barracks, the minarets our bayonets, the faithful our soldiers”. Left unexplored in the article is *why* the “far right” might take issue with sentiments such as that.

 Posted by at 11:41 am

Avro “Big Wheel” mobile Minuteman launcher

 awesomeness, Crazy, history, Hmm..., nukes, Patreon, projects, rockets  3 Responses »
Aug 292016
 

Military hardware design programs often have code names that are random or nearly so, so you can’t figure out what they are if you overhear them. Concepts like “Have Blue” or “Copper Canyon” or “Science Dawn” or even “Silver Bug” are pretty opaque. But every now and then there are concepts like Avro Canada’s 1960 idea for a truck capable of carrying and launching two Minuteman ICBMs: “Big Wheel.” For once, the name matched the product.

bigwheel

One wonders what sort of career these might have had in the Monster Truck circuit after they became obsolete.

This is a document I scored off ebay a little while back; it arrived and I’ve scanned it and will include it in the very next APR Patreon catalog. If you’d like a copy, a monthly contribution of as little as $4 will get you the full-rez 300 dpi scan of each months reward documents and diagrams… currently, three documents, one large-format diagram or piece of artwork. That’s a buck an item. Give the APR Patreon a look.

bigwheel layout

 Posted by at 7:26 pm

Ker-Splat

 art, critters, dumbassery, Gah., photography, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Aug 292016
 

Some hours ago, when it was only slightly after midnight, I went outside to check on some things and noticed that the air was *really* dusty. I noticed this artistic imprint in the dust on the back window of my car:

WP_20160828_025 WP_20160828_024

It’s now just about 5:30 AM, the cars are starting to zip by carrying people to their jobs. Let it never be said that I don’t put in the hours to get my work done. But I suspect it might be about time to crash.

 Posted by at 5:26 am

SETI: “Strong signal”

 Hmm..., news, science  7 Responses »
Aug 282016
 

Hmmm.

HMMMM.

Note: no primary source documentation as yet. Still…

HMMMM.

An Interesting SETI Candidate in Hercules

Data:

Star: HD164595. Near-clone of the sun, 0.99 solar masses, 91 lightyears away in the direction of Vega, one confirmed planet (a “Warm Neptune” 16 Earth masses, 40-day orbit).

Detection: RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, in the Karachay–Cherkess Republic of Russia, not far from the border with Georgia in the Caucasus.

Signal: wavelength of 2.7 cm, 750 mJy.

The signal was apparently *very* powerful. If it was a directional beam, this would mean (assuming it’s an intelligent signal) it was sent towards Earth around 1925; “they” would have been looking at Earth circa 1834. Which means “they” obviously would not have been picking up terrestrial radio signals. A sufficiently advanced astronomical culture might have been able to spot Earth telescopically, and *perhaps* took note of changes in Earths atmosphere going on at the time, indicators of an early fossil-fuel fueled industrial revolution.

The relevant paper is to be reported on at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Tuesday, September 27th, 2016.

 

 Posted by at 10:59 am

Squatting in Utah: Not a good idea

 AARRRGH, cats, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., news, ಠ_ಠ  5 Responses »
Aug 282016
 

I have yammered on in the past about how in Britain is had not been a crime for someone to steal your home via squatting. This changed, I believe, a few years ago. I don’t know how enthusiastically the British police may be enforcing that particular law, but Utah police? They’re on it:

Swat team sent in to arrest alleged squatters

In this case, the house they were squatting in was privately owned, but *not* occupied when the two squatters moved in. Nevertheless, the police decided to remove them and charge them with a number of offenses including burglary, a felony.

Now, I’d prefer to not have SWAT cops stomping around my place making a mess. But I’d gladly deal with the disruption, the kicked-over stuff, the bullet holes and the chalk body outlines on the floor if that meant evicting a Britain-style home invader/squatter.

 

PS: In  bad mood tonight. On my evening walk I came across evidence of someone killing cats, at least two. Not cats I knew, but… not the way to get on my good side. Not sure what to do about it.

 Posted by at 12:42 am

So, just how splodey *are* airbags?

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., news, ಠ_ಠ  8 Responses »
Aug 272016
 

Enough that a truckload of ’em can do this to a nearby house:

The woman who lived in that house was missing for two days. She was finally pronounced dead when official examined “dental pieces,” which I assume means “assorted and scattered teeth.”

Truckload Of Airbag Parts Explodes En Route To Takata Plant, Killing Woman Inside Her Home

Somebody’s in trouble, I think…

 Posted by at 4:14 pm

So, how big was it?

 art, blather, drawings, history, Hmm..., projects, science, science fiction, spacecraft  6 Responses »
Aug 272016
 

Earlier this year I posted this image of a late 60’s/early 70’s Lockheed space station:

And asked if there was any hard data out there on the design. Much to my disappointment, but not to my surprise, there doesn’t seem to be any. Clearly the artist devoted a considerable amount of effort to the project… it’s not something slapped together on a whim. But it’s also likely something that got buried and may never again see the light of publicity. So some months back I decided to try to figure out just how big it was supposed to be. Fortunately there are reasonably clear humans for scale.

First off: one thing you discover real fast about the world of concept is art is Do Not Trust Scale References. Things aren’t scaled *down* too often, but things are scaled *up* with annoying frequency. Because Bigger Is Better, I suppose. Consequently, the artist here *could* have taken serious liberties; scaling things up by a factor of 1.5 or even two would not be unheard of. But… this is seemingly all there is. Without further data, you have to work with what you have.

So, starting with the cutaway image, there are a number of male human figures. Assume that the average is about 70 inches tall (for those of you in countries that *didn’t* land men on the moon, 70 inches is about 5.7621e-17 parsecs). Three figures are fairly clearly visible on the uppermost module… one is 67 pixels tall, one is 69 pixels tall and one is 77 pixels tall. The average there is 71 pixels. Thus… 71 pixels = 70 inches. For simplicity, let’s just assume that 1 pixel equals 1 inch.  The diameter of the module can be estimated based on the top and bottom points of the cylinder. The top  is clearly visible via the cables entering into it;  the underside has similar cables which are not visible due to the module being slightly rotated. If we assume that the bottom is as far from the visible edge as the top is, that gives a diameter of 386 pixels, or 386 inches.

module 1 dims

Interestingly, and perhaps tellingly, the diameter of the Saturn V first and second stages was 396 inches. I think it’s perhaps safe to assume that we’re looking at modules designed to be that same diameter. Drawing one of the modules in CAD by tracing over the geometry gives a module length of about 1116 inches.

lock station module

Coming up next time on “Don’t You Have Anything Better To Do Theater:” the overall layout and dimensions of the space station.

 Posted by at 3:37 pm
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