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Mar 092016
 

Sometimes people who disagree with my politics mock me for referencing communism, because communism supposedly fell a quarter century ago (despite the fact that Marxism is alive and well int he minds of many, many people). But fascism fell seventy years ago… and yet, here we are, with two candidates for president who are readily compared to old school fascists (Trump’s aping of Mussolini’s style, Sander’s aping of fascist policies). And not just these two… fascism is apparently quite popular on college campii today. Witness:

Student Assembly for Power and Liberation Demands (WWU)

These Junior Fascists are demanding the creation of a new “College of Power and Liberation,” funds, physical infrastructure and the power to conduct inquisitions against students and faculty that are insufficiently politically correct. Teachers would face discipline if they main insufficient “safe spaces” int heir classrooms… in other words, if they say, do, teach anything that any precious little snowflake finds to be uncomfortable or just contradictory to their views.

Gah.

I have, from time to time, entertained the notion of wandering up to the University in Logan and finding whoever it would be I’d need to find and attempt to convince them that what the University desperately needs is a new course on “Science for Science Fiction Authors.” It would cover the basics of such things as space flight (including orbits, the actual scale and scope of the universe, propulsion systems, etc.), basic physics and relevant chemistry, biology (including “so what happens when you leave the spaceship without your spacesuit”) and so on. And a not inconsiderable section on sci-fi weapons. Lasers, KE systems, what it would actually take to blow up a planet, that sort of thing.

And every time I consider teaching such a course, I suddenly get this vision of a sizable fraction of the class, populated by English lit majors, suddenly freaking out about not feeling safe in a discussion of phaser guns. And I just can’t imagine that going terribly well, since I have, and can have, no sympathy for their position.

 Posted by at 10:10 am
Mar 082016
 

Returning home last night well after sundown, just a few hundred yards from home a dog decided it would be an awesome fun time to dash out into the road right in front of my car. My car had been loaded with stuff like groceries and lumber and such… none of which ended up where I’d originally put it. Good news: my brakes work.

brakecheck

 Posted by at 9:31 pm
Mar 082016
 

The real value of *good* science is the ability to predict the future. And so, coming off January and February 2016, which were apparently the hottest months on record, with an El Nino  that has been pretty impressive, some climatologists are predicting that the rest of 206 will be Damn Hot and filled with wacky weather.

El Niño’s Disastrous Worldwide Consequences Are Just Getting Started

The global warming “pause’ that seems to have occurred for a dozen or so years appears to be over. The thermal energy that didn’t seem to be jacking up the atmospheric temperature was instead being drawn into the deep ocean, warming cold waters. But with El Nino stirring things up, that thermal energy is apparently being dumped back into the atmosphere, leading to a remarkable temperature rise rate.

And so, if 2016 *does* turn out to be a year filled with extraordinary climatic horrors… you know who to blame: anti-nuclear activists. Had they not shut the program down in the late 1970s/early 1980s, we’d have a lot more nukes, a lot less coal & oil plants, a lot less CO2 in the air and a less wacky climate.

 Posted by at 1:07 pm
Mar 072016
 

This looks interesting… the entire movie is shot in first person. There’s a bit more shakeycam than seems strictly necessary, so I imagine there’ll be some people who’ll need Dramamine to get through this flick.

 

 

 Posted by at 9:20 pm
Mar 072016
 

Project Horizon was a late 1950’s US Army study for a military lunar base. It’s hardly a secret at this point… it has been written about for decades, and several volumes of the report have been available online as generally “meh”-quality PDFs for years. Still, as well known as Horizon is to the space-history community, I imagine it’s pretty much unknown to the general population. So imagine my modest surprise when I halfway caught a commercial for a special on Project Horizon to air tomorrow (Tuesday) night on the Science Channel, on an episode of “NASA’s Unexplained Files.”

From the bit I caught, it seems like the show will probably slant the story not as “hey, look as this neato-wacky concept the Army looked at sixty years ago,” but more as “what is the Army hiding on the moon, look, BEHOLD, for we have found Secret Plans.” In general this would be a turnoff, but it’s not like Horizon gets a lot of press. And from the brief glimpse, it *looks* like someone got hold of Project Horizon color artwork. So this might be one of those things where the show is spectacular if you simply put the sound on “mute.” Consequently, it might be worth digitally recording if anyone has the ability. And who knows… *maybe* they’ll actually produce something new, or give hints as to where a complete original *color* version of the reports might be found.

UPDATE: Bleurrrrgh. Good and shallow, added nothing new. The color artwork shown is *modern* lunar base artwork, from the 90’s or later.

 Posted by at 12:00 pm