Dec 302015
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Dec 292015
Vegetarian and “Healthy” Diets Could Be More Harmful to the Environment
Carnegie Mellon Study Finds Eating Lettuce Is More Than Three Times Worse in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Than Eating Bacon
This study looks at things like lettuce and eggplant that require a whole lot of water and tending to grow.
Vegans and the like often talk about how raising food-critters is inefficient because they need to be fed corn and whatnot that could feed people directly. The thing that occurs to me is that they don’t *necessarily* need to eat plants that could feed humans. Sure, in feedlots cows and such get fed highly nutritious (i.e. processed) feed… but out in the west they tend to graze free-range on stuff like grass. Grass requires no effort on the part of humans to grow. No water, no planting, no fertilizing, no nothing. So at least in that case, feeding cattle costs approximately nothing, and in fact is a *better* use of the land for feeding people than growing crops would be.
Dec 292015
Well, duh. Time passes and it has some rather inevitable effects, including making people look older. But apparently a lot of people have been complaining about and/or mocking Fishers appearance in “The Force Awakens.”
So Fisher tweeted this:
Please stop debating about whetherOR not👁aged well.unfortunately it hurts all3 of my feelings.My BODY hasnt aged as well as I have.Blow us👌🏼
— Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) December 29, 2015
Those last two words? Classic.
Dec 292015
Remember the spoiled rich kid who got drunked up, killed four people on the road, and got sentenced not to prison but to probation because he suffered from “affluenza?” Remember how a few days ago he and his mother vanished, violating said probation and causing the authorities to start a manhunt to find him? Well, they found him, down Mexico way.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/local/article/Affluenza-teen-caught-Mexico-Ethan-Couch-CNN-6724845.php
That’s nice and all, knowing that he will be extradited back to the US and will face ten years in prison. But what will really put a smile on your face is this photo of Ethan Couch released by the Jalisco state prosecutors office:
Heh.
Dec 282015
Inexperienced, Undereducated Truck Driver Destroys Indiana Bridge Built In 1880
The driver took a thirty-ton truck over an old iron bridge rated for six tons. From the police report:
Ms. Lambright was aware of the iron bridge stating she had driven on it several times in her personal vehicle and was also aware of the posted signage “no semis, weight limit of 6 tons”. When asked by Paoli Police why she continued through the bridge knowing the weight limit was only 6 tons she admitted to not knowing how many pounds that was.
The down sides to this story are obvious: inconveniencing the people who rely on that bridge, costing her employers buckets of money, damaging a historical artifact. On the plus side: some people will be getting a new bridge, and here’s an opportunity to discuss the miserable state of the Department of Education. Also… one has to wonder how often this sort of thing will happen with robo-trucks.
Dec 272015
Interesting news article:
Woman’s body acts as ‘brewery,’ so judge dismisses DWI
Some anomaly in her GI tract causes digesting food to sometimes be fermented into alcohol; she was repeatedly tested with a blood alcohol level above 0.30 without the benefit of booze. People with this condition seem to be able to get along because their bodies have grown adjusted to being drunk, but I gather that they’re still tipsy. And of course it’ll still trash their livers and such.
It occurs to me that this might be a *useful* condition. If it could be made into something that could be given to someone, I can see all kinds of utility in something that will make an enemy combatant constantly drunk. *Especially* an enemy combatant in a society that sees getting likkered up as an affront to an angry invisible sky wizard. The people born with this get used to blood alcohol levels of 0.3 and above, but imagine what sudden onset Auto-Brewery Syndrome would do to some dude in his twenties who has never had so much as a beer. The entertainment value alone of suicide bomber drunkenly weaving around and setting themselves off prematurely would be worth the development cost.
Dec 262015
This is both sad and enlightening:
Pope Francis offers hope to faithless, says atheists can go to heaven
The subject of the thread is of much less interest than the sheer nastiness of the commenters. Doesn’t matter what your religion or your politics, there seems to be little that brings out the vitriolic vengeance-fantasy more than the idea that The Other Guy will be crushed under a giant boot heel. Here it’s the idea that “people who don’t believe just the same way I do will be cast into a lake of fire.” An equivalent leftist version holds that gun owners will be wiped out by government troops… those stooopid gun nuts who think that their guns will protect them from a tyrannical government will find out how wrong they are when the government drops nukes on them, yessiree! But still, nothing seems to beat the thrill that many people seem to get when envisioning the eternal torment of millions of otherwise perfectly fine people who simply don’t belong to the same fan club. Can’t wait until the Church of Trek and the Jedi Temple start going at each other like this.
Dec 262015
I’m certain that Xur and the Kodan Armada will be lining up for this:
Cabot Meteorite Pistol Set
The “Big Bang Pistol Set” will be a pair of left and right handed 1911’s made from meteoritic metal. Rather than melting the meteorite, the components will be cut from the meteorite. if it all works out, the Widmanstattten patterns should result in some spectacular looking firearms. It’ll also result in firearms you couldn’t pay me to pull the trigger on; inconsistent alloying and structure would seem to make them more very complex pipe bombs than reliable firearms. However, since they estimate that the auction price of the pair will be half a million to a million dollars, I suspect that I won’t be tasked with shooting these things anytime soon.
Bear in mind that Cabot’s “entry level” 1911 runs $3,675. So they’re used to “pricey.”
Here’s a photo of one of their 1911’s with meteorite-metal grips:
Dec 252015
Again with the “Star Wars.” Someone found and scanned the 1977 Sears “Wish Book,” which contains interesting nuggets of history such as the first release of the Atari video game system… and a whole lot of fashions and furnishings that illustrate just how awful the year Star Wars came out was. Conveniently, the 1977 prices are given, along with the 2015 equivalents. Such things as color TV’s were *insanely* expensive a 19-inch model running $1445 in todays dollars..
https://medium.com/@gregmaletic/the-sears-wish-book-1977-10d41595f624#.utclzcvaj
Dec 252015
It dawns on me that today is a holiday of some note. It also dawns on me that I have bills to pay. So, until midnight-ish (mountain time), I’m running a sale on all US Aerospace Projects and Aerospace Projects Review downloadable issues. Still can’t run a convenient Paypal “coupon” or any such thing, so as with previous sales, you buy something and I’ll refund you the difference.
So, for the duration of the sale, get 20% off all APR and USXP orders of $10 or more. And get 25% off for all orders over $100.
Sale has ended.