Specifically, deep fakes. Here’s the pinnacle.
Sep 202023
Sep 182023
It turns out that Peter Jackson filmed about 1,300 *hours* of footage for the Lord of the Rings. Seven million feet of negative is sitting in a Warner Brothers vault, not doin’ nuthin’. Granted the majority of this is alternate takes and bloopers, but almost certainty there is enough quality additional scenes there that the already massive Extended Version could be greatly further extended. Guy in the video below suggests that Warner Bros cutting Jackson loose to create six-hour miniseries from each movie for release on HBO/Max would be the way to go for the 25th anniversary of each flick, in much the same way they gave “The Justice League” back to Zack Snyder. I can’t say as that I disagree: a proper Ridiculously Extended Cut, overseen by Jackson, would be a dandy way to get over the nightmare of “the Rings of Power.”
The legalities of such things elude me. I *assume* that Warner retains all the rights to do with their stuff what they see fit, but who knows.
Sep 172023
Normally people are impressed with aircraft going higher, faster. And that’s certainly worth getting impressed about. But prepare to be impressed with aircraft going *incredibly* slow…
Someday it will be practical to 3D print structures of incredibly lightness using carbon fiber, with structures decimeters long and hair-thin, while still rigid. With skins of graphene and “rubber bands” made out of… well, I don’t know what, imagine the wondrously impractical ghostlike aircraft that will be built. With equally advanced optics and electronics, such aircraft could have cameras and transmitters. carried aloft by high altitude balloons, they could be released at the edge of space to fly for potentially days, covering hundreds or thousands of miles, their weak signals picked up by ground or space based receivers. I don’t know if cameras and transmitters will be good enough to make them useful intelligence gathering systems, but they are very unlikely to be detected by IR or radar. With their carbon constructions and extreme surface area to volume rations, when they are done they will likely degrade away to almost nothing very quickly.
Aug 262023
Tony Landis has just released – for free – his book on the F-16XL:
https://wss.apan.org/public/AFMC-History-Office/Shared Documents/F-16XL Book_Final-web (1).pdf
It’s a 285-page heavily illustrated PDF; highly recommended. It will soon also be available as a paperback through Amazon:
Neat.
Aug 242023
First, good news from the world of medicine:
UK’s first womb transplant deemed ‘massive success’: ‘Over the moon’
One woman (40) donated her womb to her sister (34) who was born with a malformed womb. So both women can have kids. This is good news. The first uterus transplant was in 2013 in Sweden, so this has been going on a while, if not widely.
But since we can’t have anything nice, here’s where this will go:
Trans womb transplants ‘10 to 20 years’ away after UK’s first successful operation on cis patient
Weird enough that some people want to transplant wimminbits into biological dudes. But it gets weirder:
Taxpayers should fund $300,000 UTERUS transplants to help transgender women get pregnant, suggests authors in AMA Journal
The curious thing is that the Venn Diagram of “people who support taxpayer funding it so guys can get pregnant” and “people who thing we should reduce the population if western nations” probably overlaps a *lot.*
Besides the basic insanity of using surgery to affirm delusions, there’s the issue of what it’s gonna do to the prospective offspring. At the least they’ll know that they’re the product of Mad Science; they will also be raised by someone claiming to be their mother, but who does not have the upbringing of a woman. *THEN* there’s the issue of… even if the womb works, what’s going to happen to the fetus? DudeMom won’t produce the same hormones a woman does. HShe’ll doubtless have to spend the term of the pregnancy constantly getting shot full of drugs and hormones in a desperate attempt to give the embryo a hope in hell of gestating correctly. And then, there’s the end: the new womb probably didn’t come with a new pelvis. The male pelvis does not have space for a proper birth canal. So any offspring resulting from this will, like French Bulldogs, likely have to be brought about via C-Section.
And then there’s this to consider: in the second article above, it’s suggested that it’ll be 10 to 20 years before transplanting wombs into males becomes a reality. But… in 10 to 20 years, chances seem decent that bespoke organs can be produced via 3D bio-printing, cloning, etc. Use the “mothers” own DNA to create a womb with “moms” own DNA.
And then there’s this: in 10 to 20 years, the United Kingdom will be a fundamentally different place. When the UK becomes London writ large, the culture will be upended. It seems a bit unlikely that these sort of surgeries will be performed in a Britain, any more than they’ll be performed in Uganda or Saudi Arabia.
Aug 182023
Thanks to ebay and my fabulously lean bank account, I have recently procured a number of items of potential interest:
“NASA Earth Orbital Space Station,” a poster-sized lithograph from McDonnell Douglas depicting a space station that tumbles for artificial-G.
“Re-Entry Payload Launch Vehicle,” A *brief* General Dynamics presentation on a vehicle to launch re-entry vehicles such as MIRV warhead shapes
“Proposed Development Program on Rocket-Type Missiles,” a 1948 Convair report on early ballistic/boost glide missile concepts, that would lead to Atlas. Includes some fantastic large format layout diagrams.
“Detail Specification for Consolidated Vultee Model 117 Airplane Class VR Transport Flying Boat,” August 1950, all the details on the then-brand new Tradewind.
“Detail Specification for Class VP Long Range Patrol Seaplane,” Consolidated Vultee 1946, all the details on a proposed flying boat patrol/bomber
32 issues of “Astronautics” magazine from 1957 to 1969, mostly 57-59 and 63 or so.
The lithograph and the reports will be scanned and put forward for consideration for monthly rewards; the magazines will have the interesting bits scanned and made available to the subscribers/patrons.
Aug 162023
Here’s something you don’t see too often… someone firing *numerous* rounds from a Gyrojet. Each of these .45 caliber rounds are solid propellant rocket units, last manufactured in the 70’s or so. They apparently run about $200 *each,* which makes me wonder if there might be a market for newly manufactured ammo. As a practical home defense, police or military weapon… the Gyrojet basically wasn’t. It took something like 50 feet for the round to reach maximum velocity, which means at close range it might just bounce off an opponent. But as a range toy they might be fun, especially if the cost per round could be dropped substantially. And there’s no reason why it can’t… sure, each round is more complex than an equivalent conventional bullet, but they are just some basic parts with 1960’s rocket propellant. And that last could doubtless be improved; better propellant, better grain design and better manufacturing of the nozzle plate could *really* boost performance.
The claim is made here that the Gyrojet was designed to be used in space because they were uncertain if conventional gunpowder firearms would work in a vacuum. This is untrue; nobody with the least bit of understanding of the chemistry of gunpowder and how guns work thinks that guns *won’t* work in space. However, conventional firearms do have three major issues for space applications:
- Recoil.
- Thermal issues: exposure to sunlight and vacuum means that small metal devices like guns heat up *fast.*
- Vacuum issues: grease, gun oil and the like boil off quick, meaning they can’t be used in space.
The Gyrojet has far lower recoil than conventional firearms. And the Gyrojet is a far simpler mechanism, made largely from stamped metal sheet to far lower specifications. This means it can heat up without jamming, with virtually no need for lubricants. So the Gyrojet seems like it’d make a dandy sidearm for the USSF. Bump it up to .75 caliber and you have yourself a light bolter. And perhaps best: home manufacture of Gyrojets would be *easy.* A 3D printed Gyrojet, with some *basic* metal parts, would not only be easy to make, but with vastly lower forces imparted on it than a conventional firearm, it’d be far less likely to explode.
So… where are the new-manufacture Gyrojet rounds? At $200 a round for the vintage stuff, you can start off *real* expensive and still undercut the current market.
Aug 152023
It’s in their online catalog, but currently unavailable. I guess they sold out. A pity… there are a few points in the timeline I’d like to go back to to correct. Or at least get a few photos and videos of.
Flux Capacitor
Aug 122023
Since I live in the horribly, hilariously politically corrupt state of Illinois, “voting” is something that on one hand, doesn’t really count, and on the other hand, you can do as often as you like. So voting for a guy running for Congress in Texas, for the equivalent seat from Illinois? Sure, why not. Perhaps some of the people who facilitated Gropey Joe’s “win” in 2020 can be persuaded to use their talents to convert votes for Herrera in Texas into votes for Herrera in Illinois. Heck, maybe they can install him not only as an Illinois Congressman, but an Illinois State Supreme Court Justice and also Governor.
Aug 102023
Recently acquired at some cost, and finally fully scanned at some effort, is this 1965 “Master Plan” for Kennedy Space Center. It’s basically a book of maps of the region showing all aspect of the infrastructure. It’s in good shape and was scanned at 600 DPI rather than the usual 300, due to the fine quality of the maps. It will be in the next catalog for Patrons and Subscribers to vote on. It’s a little out of the usual for APR… it’s not about unbuilt aircraft or spacecraft; in fact, no aircraft or spacecraft designs are included. But it’s still an interesting historical artifact.
I also have a KSC Master Plan from the Shuttle era. Substantially larger format, with more conventional full-color maps. I haven’t scanned that due to the chore it would be to get done, but if this proves popular, I’ll get on it. I *also* have a large-format Master Plan for Ames Research Center.
If you are interested, check out the Historical Documents Program.
