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Planet IX

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., news, science  13 Responses »
Jan 202016
 

News broke today that some circumstantial evidence suggests the existence of a new planet in our solar system. Unlike poor Pluto which lost its official planet status, this planet is estimated to mass 5 to 10 times Earth, which would make it indisputably a planet.

To be clear, the planet has not yet actually been discovered. Instead, its existence has been inferred by noting that a number of Kuiper belt objects that *have* been observed appear to be gravitationally perturbed by a single object that fits the Planet IX description. If it is eventually found, we won;t be sending probes to it anytime soon… it’s estimated orbital semimajor axis averages 600 AUs; it might get as close to the sun as 200 AU. Neptune is a mere 30 AU from the sun. It is thought to be an ice giant… a large rocky core that *could* have turned into a gas giant, but is too far out to have gathered much gas during the initial formation of the solar system, and what gas it does have is frozen as ice onto the surface. Due to its extreme distance (600 AU), it’s thought to probably look 600 times dimmer than Pluto as seen through a telescope. Sunlight should be about 0.0025 times as bright as it is on Pluto, or 0.0000028 times as bright as on Earth… one part in 360,000. In other words: kinda dark. So if you’re planning on sending a probe, basically the day side of the planet would be like trying to photograph the night side of the moon. If we duplicated the New Horizons mission (interesting note: new Horizons launched ten years and one day ago) to this world, it would take at least 190 years for the probe to get there.

 Posted by at 9:34 pm

Re-engined B-52

 aircraft, drawings, history, Hmm..., Patreon, projects  5 Responses »
Jan 202016
 

I recently acquired diagrams of a B-52 with six high-bypass turbofans. Sadly, the diagram lacks data on *which* engines those were, and when the design was made. So: does this look familiar?

re-engined b-52

Could be any of several, I think.

The full diagrams have been posted into the 2016-01 folder on the APR Patron Dropbox site. If interested, this and many, many other high-rez aerospace goodies are available to all APR Patreon patrons at the $4 level and higher. So, check it out…

patreon-200

UPDATE: Looks like this was *probably* the CFM56. Some Googling finds repeated references to a study in the 1980′ s to re-engine the B-52 with six CFM56’s, though I haven’t found much in the way of details.

 Posted by at 10:41 am

Back to the vet…

 AARRRGH, cats  18 Responses »
Jan 192016
 

Raedthinn has been acting very strange last few weeks (he has been increasingly attempting to get my attention, for purposes unknown); today he has basically lost his voice and acts like he’s miserable. Spent much of the day hiding under the same bed he hid under after his recent dental escapades. Attacked me when I petted his belly. So tomorrow afternoon I’m taking him in to get checked. I suppose it could well just be One Of Those Things, but his behavior has been “off” enough to make me uncomfortable.

WP_20160119_008 WP_20160119_007

Here’s Fingers using Raedthinn’s face as a pillow.

 

———————

UPDATE:

The vet gave Raedthinn  the once-over and found… nothing. Temperature normal, innards normal, his teeth and jaw, which I’d worried about, normal. One of the main drivers in taking him to the vet was that he’d lost his voice; at the vet he yelled his damfool head off in protest. Apparently nothing physically wrong with him, but the vet suspected a psychological issue. So as a result, I brought Raedthinn him with a bottle of meds… but not meds for Raedthinn. Instead, some sort of anti-jackassery juice for Bruce. Seems chances are good that Raedthinn is just sick and tired of Bruce’s hijinks. So Bruce has had his first dose; so far, he’s acting like a calm cat. We’ll see if that relaxes Raedthinn.

 Posted by at 5:30 pm

Commitment to cause

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, religion, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Jan 192016
 

Faith, according to many, can impart many good behaviors. But then it can also do this:

The boy accused of blasphemy who cut off his hand

In short: at a mosque in Pakistan, a 15-year-old boy mis-heard a question raised by the imam: “Who among you doesn’t believe in the teachings of the Holy Prophet? Raise your hands!”

He raised his hand. He was promptly accused of blasphemy by the imam. This being one of the worlds many Dumb Regions, the accusation of blasphemy is taken quite seriously (it often leads to an official death sentence, coupled with unofficial lynchings; in court, you’re generally not allowed to defend yourself, and even the accusation can’t really be brought out in court because *that* would be blasphemy). So, the kid did what I suppose makes sense if you are a religious nut who has been accused of committing blasphemy with your hand: he chopped it off and tried to hand it to the imam on a plate.

Since this is a Dumb Region, the locals did not drag the kid to a hospital to try to reattach the hand; they bandaged him up and buried the hand. They did not shake their heads and bemoan the fate of the poor, crazy dumb kid… they have decided to revere his act of religious devotion. People from surrounding villages have started to swing by to express their admiration.

Gah.

But on the other hand (snerk)…

I can see an opportunity here. Is it possible to advertise and promote this act among others of his religion who are equally religiously nutty? Get them to believe that it is an act to emulate? Beyond the utility of having people who might otherwise be building suicide bombs disarming themselves (heh), there’d be just the sheer entertainment value.

 Posted by at 2:24 pm

Here’s your “Well, *DUH*” headline for today

 Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., politics, wisdom  3 Responses »
Jan 192016
 

For English cop, Detroit’s streets are a culture shock

Well, duh.

Where the article gets it wrong: the blame here seems to settle almost entirely on “gun culture.” But there’s not more of a “gun culture” in Detroit than there is in, say, Salt Lake City. What there *is* is a difference in *overall* culture between the two cities. Detroit has been run by scumbags, for scumbags, for decades.

Well, as Britain starts to load up on “migrants” who seem to have as high a tolerance of scumbaggery as many of the denizens of Detroit… get ready for London policing to become more like Detroit policing.

 Posted by at 1:44 pm

A Modest Proposal

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, religion, wisdom, ಠ_ಠ  8 Responses »
Jan 182016
 

We’ve seen this story more and more recently:

Wisconsin lawnmower factory says it will FIRE all 53 of its Muslim employees if they take unscheduled prayer breaks

In short: a bunch of the employees on an assembly line walk away from their jobs twice a day, apart from the scheduled break times. The business has a problem with this… not really surprising, as having people step away from an assembly line can mean the whole process grinds to a halt. The article does not say how many employees the company has as a whole, but if the prayer-walkoffs do cause the whole company to lock up, then I can see why this would be a major problem.

So, I have a solution which everyone should appreciate.

Some groundrules for my solution:

  1. Those who want to wander off and pray are allowed to do so.
  2. Those who don’t should not be made to pay for it. This means not only the company, but other employees… they shouldn’t have to put in extra time because their co-workers weren’t on the job.

So… my solution is simple. If shutting down the production line twice a day for, say, ten minutes at a time without extending the work day to make up for it costs the company (handwave) $5000 a day in lost productivity… those employees who want to leave to go pray get to make up the difference. Fifty employees cough up the $5K/day difference, or $100 per day per employee.

Seems simple enough.  The company doesn’t suffer economic losses, the other employees don’t have to stay late, and those who want to go pray get to go pray. Simple! Fair! Equitable!

Also noted in the story is that the company has a dedicated “prayer room.” One wonders… if during  Prayer Shutdown someone wanted to use the “prayer room” to sacrifice a pig to Odin or Pele, or even just have a ham sammich, swig some mead, and sing sagas about That One Time Ragnar Went A’Whorin’ In Cairo, would the other inhabitants of said prayer room complain? Well, if history is any guide, Odinists are not really welcome in generic “Multicultural Rooms.” Which is exactly why if there are any pagans working at this manufacturing facility, they should make full use of the “prayer room.”

 Posted by at 9:14 am

Whups.

 Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  11 Responses »
Jan 182016
 

Video of the Falcon 9 landing,  burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. Or something like that. Basically it boils down to “oooh, so close.” I’m not convinced that the rocket would have stayed upright even if the landing gear hadn’t collapsed, due to the rough seas; but it’s still a hell of an effort.

 

Given that weather seems like it might have played a role here, my earlier comment hearkening back to the Challenger suggestion “don’t launch when it’s cold” suddenly seems pretty applicable. “Don’t launch when it’s foggy,” or, more likely, “don’t expect to get it back if you launch when it’s foggy.”

 Posted by at 12:56 am

You daily dose of Hurrr, Herp and Derp

 dumbassery, Forward!, projects, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Jan 172016
 

Gentlemen, behold! The absolutely dumbest thing you’ll read all day. And unless you also read Donald Trumps dream journal, very likely the dumbest thing you’ll read all week:

International students, here’s what you need to know about guns in America to survive your education

The sheer amount of dishonest propaganda contained in this screed simply boggles the mind. For instance:

States that allow guns on campus. Since guns are carried in a concealed fashion, it will never be clear who is packing one, so these are the most dangerous states: Colorado, Idaho, and Utah.

The author is attempting to claim that university campii in Colorado, Idaho and Utah are particularly dangerous places because they allow concealed carry on campus. Guess how many students have been shot by a concealed carry license holder on Utah or Idaho since 1990. Go on, GUESS.

Here’s a hint for anyone considering visiting the US, as a student, tourist, on business travel or whatever: if you don’t want to get shot, follow this one simple rule: don’t engage in criminal behavior. That’s the number on thing that gets people shot: their own criminality. Yes, there are some places to avoid. Seedy areas. Run down areas. Chicago. Detroit. Anyplace with a long record of Democratic party dominance. But these are unlikely to be the places you want to go anyway.

 Posted by at 4:29 pm
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