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Maybe More Helium

 Hmm..., news, science  20 Responses »
Jun 282016
 

Huge helium discovery ‘a life-saving find’

In recent years a lot of people who care about such things have been quietly freaking out about the forthcoming helium shortage. Never mind party balloons… a lack of helium would be a *real* problem for anyone who needs superconductors… such as people who rely on MRIs and particle accelerators and the like, cooled by liquid helium. It seems, though, that new large underground reservoirs of helium may have been located, and may be economically tappable.

Sid note: from time to time I’ve seen it suggested in science fiction that all the helium we need could be produced through nuclear fusion of hydrogen in commercial fusion powerplants. A nice idea, but the problem if that very, very little helium would be produced. For example:

The energy liberated by the fusion of 1 Kg of Deuterium with 1.5 Kg of Tritium is therefore 2.82 X 10-12 X 2.99 X 1026 = 8.43 X 1014 Joules = (8.43 X 1014) / (3.6 X 1012) GWHours = 234 GWHours.

This energy appears in the form of heat. If it was used to generate electricity in a conventional steam turbine power plant with an efficiency of 38%, it would provide 88,900 MWH of electricity which is near enough equivalent to one year’s operation with a constant output power of 10 MWatts.

So a ten megawatt fusion generating plant would crank out about 2.5 kilos of helium per year. Yeah, not really floating the Goodyear blimp on *that.*

 Posted by at 12:30 pm

Snerk!

 awesomeness, news, politics, youtube  2 Responses »
Jun 282016
 

Nigel Farage (of the UK Independence party, a leader in the Brexit movement) speaking before the EU bureaucaparliament. Apart from the accent, it sounds much like a speech that *should* be given before Congress. Notably, a lot of the reaction to the speech is, especially in light of the recent tantrum the Dems had on the House floor, also very familiar in tone and childishness. There is a whole lot of disdain when Farage says that the UK and the EU should not have tariffs, indicating that the EUniks want to punish the Brits economically.

“I know that virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives, or worked in business, or worked in trade, or indeed ever created a job.”

 Posted by at 12:11 pm

I mean, who *wouldn’t* want to spend $100,000 for one of these tickets?

 AARRRGH, Crazy, I'm from the government, news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jun 262016
 

Hamilton: An American Musical with special guest Hillary Rodham Clinton

Premium Seat – $10,000 Includes Photo Reception with Hillary

Host – $33,400 Includes Premium Seat and Wrap Party with Hillary and other special guests

Event Chair – $100,000 Includes two Premium Seats and Wrap Party with Hillary and other special guests, and Invitation to the Democratic National Convention

I mean, gosh! You’d have to be crazy to *not* buy a couple of tickets! You have to spend money to make money, right? And how else are you going to get this close to Hillary to bend her ear for two seconds to try to influence her policies than by throwing fat stacks of cash at her?

 

 Posted by at 1:32 am

Ads

 blather  3 Responses »
Jun 262016
 

A couple years ago, ads started appearing above the Disqus comments on posts on the Unwanted Blog. I didn’t ask for ’em, and I wasn’t asked to let ’em show up… they just did. But they were easy enough to ignore, so I just chalked ’em up to the cost of doing business. Turns out, though, that I receive a fraction of a  pittance from the ads. I’m scoring something like three to ten cents a day. Woooooooo.

In looking into this, I found that as far as the ads were concerned the focus of the blog was set to “Living.” Now, granted that “Dying” seems a poor focus for a blog, I’d assume that “Living” would be accurate enough, but I don’t think that’s quite what’s meant. So I re-set it to “Tech.” Which, again, might not be the most accurate setting, but they don’t seem to have a Tech-Science-SciFi-Politics-News-Rant setting. At least as of this writing the ads don’t seem to have changed their focus any, but maybe they will, who knows.

So… I dunno. If you see an ad that looks halfway interesting, *maybe* take a look. I might get half a penny out of the deal. Or maybe use that Amazon search box at upper right… I get a pittance out of that, too.

And for the trolls out there: Huzzah. Every time you comment you’re putting a fraction of a cent into my pocket. I’m sure you’re thrilled.

 Posted by at 1:07 am

PDF Review: Aerospace Projects Clip Art

 aircraft, art, history, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 252016
 

A heavily illustrated USAF brochure on turbine engine technology included, among a vast number of little photos of engines and aircraft, a few illustrations that might be of interest.

Several futuristic concepts here, several old ones. Of particular interest is the “Supersonic Multirole Fighter,” which looks like a cross between the old Lockheed Hopeless Diamond concept and the Northrop XST design… tailless with an inlet on top, with features reminiscent of the F-117, but blended rather than faceted.

aeroclipart2

 

Of these “Emerging Concept Needs,” several are distinctly old. The middle row of three designs are all 20+ year-old concepts.

aeroclipart3

aeroclipart4

 Posted by at 6:13 pm

Storytime: “Going to Gimli” part 4

 My Fiction, science fiction, spacecraft  7 Responses »
Jun 252016
 

Here is Part Four of the story of Sarah, Zane, Loff and George transporting a shipload of rich folk to Gimli, a place where regular folk just don’t get to go. Here in Part Four, the Corpus Georgi finally lands at the destination after an unusual escort.

If you want to catch up in advance, Part One is available HERE, Part Two is available HERE, Part Three is available HERE, and the previous story, “Mass Disappearance,” is available HERE. A couple story fragments starring this crew are available HERE and HERE. Part Five, already written and completed, will be the final portion of the story.

If you like it, feel free to tell your friends, family, co-workers, random strangers, whoever. Like it, hate it or meh it, I’m interested in your thoughts via comments. In particular: do you read it in EPUB pr PDF??

EPUB version

PDF version

 

 Posted by at 1:22 pm

Men & Women: not the same

 blather, Hmm..., science, wisdom, youtube  6 Responses »
Jun 252016
 

Below is a brief armwrestling video. Not really the standard fare around here, but I thought it was illuminating. Because on one side there’s Jill Mills, two time “World’s Strongest Woman.” On the other side there are three more or less normal guys. Clearly none of them are powerlifters like Ms. Mills. She appears to have bigger muscles than any of them. She *looks* stronger than any of them. And out of the three matches, she loses twice. This presumes that these matches were on the up-and-up and she didn’t throw ’em.

Like it or not, there are same *distinct* differences between men and women. We are not interchangable. This is not a judgement of moral superiority or being “better,” or a suggestion that anyone should be considered unequal before the law. It’s just… the way it is. Men are, on average, substantially physically stronger than women, just like Masai are on average notably  taller than Kalahari bushmen, or women have slightly longer lifespans than men

Feel free to share with the trigglodytes in your life.

 

 Posted by at 8:16 am
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