Affirmative Action No More

 awesomeness, history, news, politics  No Responses »
Jun 292023
 

Supreme Court strikes down college affirmative action programs

The court ruled that both programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and are therefore unlawful. The vote was 6-3 in the UNC case and 6-2 in the Harvard case, in which liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was recused.

Affirmative action, i.e. systemic racism, is a bad idea on several levels. Firstly, it’s simply racist; it foment distrust and discord. Second, it’s not only unfair to those who are excluded, it’s unfair to many of those it purports to help. For example:

Harvard is an elite institution in part because it’s *difficult.* Just because you get in doesn’t mean you get through. It’s my understanding that the curriculum and grading policies there are such that you have *got* to be the best of the best. but if you got in while being the best of the mid, your chances of making it through a Harvard degree are in serious doubt. How much debt did you put your family in to go to a school you’re very likely going to fail out of? After you’ve been made to feel inadequate *and* impoverished, are you going to go to the mid-level school you should’ve in the first place, or are you going to simply bail on the whole thing?

When I was getting ready for college, I had dreams of going to MIT or Stanford or the like. My advisors, fortunately, were both smart and honest and, indeed, *good* enough to tell me that that was an insane notion. I was *not* at that level. It would have been ruinous to try, even if I had someone squeaked in. Fortunately, I didn’t have some institutionally racist program in place to bend the rules to jam my piddly ass into a program I was ill-suited for.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, it’s unfair to society: by driving away the best and brightest in favor of the mediocre, society is denied the opportunity to be served by the best and brightest in their best capabilities.

Let’s see if cities burn.

 Posted by at 3:43 pm

“XB-2002 Stealthawk”

 aircraft, art, history, Hmm..., models, politics  No Responses »
Jun 282023
 

This popped up on ebay a few years ago. It purported to be a Boeing design for an advanced subsonic stealth bomber… but the design is, clearly, rather silly. Supposedly it dates from 1984 and was produced at, by and for Boeing, intended to be a decoy for the B-2 Advanced Technology (Stealth) Bomber competitors. I’m not sure Lockheed or Northrop would have looked at this and seen a serious design, however.

*Some* aspects of it seem like they might have been taken from an actual stealthy bomber design… the inlets and exhaust, indeed much of the middle part of the wing/body, look about right. But the stubby wing and especially the straight-vertical fins in substantial numbers are goofy aerodynamics and spectacular corner reflectors.

At least two of these were made and wandered out into the wild over the years.

 Posted by at 12:31 pm

Free RTGs, I guess

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., history, Hmm..., nukes, politics, russian empire, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jun 172023
 

USSR Sprinkled More Than 2,500 Nuclear Generators Across The Countryside

These units used Strontium-90 (half life: 29 years) for the earlier ones, then Caesium-137 (half life 30 years) and Cerium-144 (half life 285 *days*). Half a century or more later the earlier units should still be kinda warm; those Cerium units will be dead as doornails (though perhaps the decay products might be spooky, not an expert). Probably some exciting weapons potential for those Stronium/Caesium units for go-getters with the gumption to go get ’em.

 

As good an idea as nuclear power is… this sort of thing goes to show what a nightmare a planned collectivist economy can be for the environment. You support socialism not only at your own peril, but everyone else’s.

 Posted by at 8:16 am

“2001 Briefcase Computer:” Cord & Keyboard

 art, awesomeness, history, science fiction  No Responses »
Jun 072023
 

The cord was cut from a guitar cord; it looks just about right. The keyboard has an incomplete set of cast urethane keys. As can be seen, these aren’t simply glued to the surfaces, but poke through. My own replica will have them slightly sprung, but someone with more enthusiasm for electronics than me will be able to use this as the basis for an actual functional keyboard & computer. There will be a fair bit of internal volume for such things.

 

 Posted by at 8:56 pm

Three of my books on ebay

 aircraft, B-47 and B-52 Origins and Evolution, books, CAD diagrams, drawings, eBay, history, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Origins and Evolution, projects, SR-71 Origins and Evolution, US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol 1  No Responses »
Jun 062023
 

I put one copy of each of my current books on ebay. They’re all in brand-new condition, and will be signed/dated when sold. They also come with bonus 18X24-inch prints… the “SR-71” book has two prints of the SR-71, the “B-47/B-52” book has one B-47 diagram and two B-52 diagrams; “US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol. 1” has two B-70 Valkyrie diagrams. Take a look…

 

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (Origins and Evolution): Signed, with bonus prints

Boeing B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress: Signed, with bonus prints

US Supersonic Bomber Projects Volume 1:  Signed, with bonus prints

 

 Posted by at 11:36 pm

“2001 Briefcase Computer:” video camera

 art, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., models, science fiction  No Responses »
Jun 052023
 
A “2001 Briefcase Computer” update: there hasn’t been much to say recently, but I’ve completed the rough-cut of the video camera. It’s made from the correct model Japanese telescope, the correct tripod and a scratch-built body with four chrome-plated “knobs.” The black bits are unclear on the prop, but were made from textured 1mm black plastic, recessed slightly into the body. The body here is white; the final versions will be fiberglass and painted to look like aluminum. There is a barely-visible square at the front, presumably a sensor… and an almost invisible square at the back. As currently built the back-square is simply a square of plastic; without further views of the proper, which I doubt are forthcoming, there’s nothing more I can add that would be “canon.” However, that would be the obvious place for switches, controls, etc.
To finish the camera, I need a correct coiled cable. Unfortunately, this sort of thing doesn’t seem to be too common these days. It is larger than a phone headset cable, with the coil appearing to be about 1 inch/ 2.5 cm in diameter. Does anyone know of such a cable? There is no connection between the cable and the camera visible; I suspect on the prop the cable was simply jammed in a hole, glued or even taped on. However, some sort of reasonable “plug” would have to be included. On one hand, a USB plug would seem right… on the other hand, the “2001” aesthetic doesn’t exactly go for “simple and easy to use,” so a nightmarish cable coax fitting would almost seem right.
To compare with:
 Posted by at 8:57 am

Space: good news/bad news

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, dumbassery, history, news, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jun 032023
 

Good news:

 

In a First, Caltech’s Space Solar Power Demonstrator Wirelessly Transmits Power in Space

This is *many* orders of magnitude away from a practical solar power satellite… but ya gotta start somewhere.

And on the other hand, bad news:

 

Boeing finds two serious problems with Starliner just weeks before launch

Problem one: bits of the parachute system aren’t as strong as they should be. Bad, but readily solvable.

Problem two: the wiring is flammable. This… is monumentally stupid, a problem that has been well understood since the Apollo 1 fire. this may well require that the capsule be largely disassembled so that *miles* of wiring can be replaced.

 

Good luck with *that.*

And while Boeing continues to struggle to get a capsule not fundamentally different from Apollo flying SpaceX continues to send crews to the ISS in Dragons.

 

 Posted by at 4:03 pm

“The Davenport” was a disaster

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., history, Hmm..., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jun 022023
 

Today I swung by “The Davenport,” the century-plus old apartment building that partially collapsed a few days ago. Roads were closed off for a radius of a block or two around it so I couldn’t get very close in my car, and I didn’t have the time to find someplace to park and walk. Ehhh, oh well. Anyway, a lot of information has come out about it; the city of Davenport has released a bunch of inspection reports and other documents going back several years showing that it has been falling apart for some time. Bricks have been popping out of the face of the building for years. It looks like the sort of place that your average person would have been able to look at and go “Nope” and run to some other accommodations.

Someone’s gettin’ sued.

 

The City of Davenport website with the documents:

https://www.davenportiowa.com/cms/One.aspx?portalId=6481456&pageId=19580321

 

In retrospect this sort of thing is not too surprising. A lot of the buildings around here are old brick structures, and The Davenport was only a few blocks from the Mississippi river. “500 year floods” seem to happen every few years now; this had *got* to have an effect. Whether water seeps into the ground that far inland I don;t know, but having tens of thousands of tons of new watery overburden from time to time has got to cause the ground to flex at least some. There are also the occasional earthquake; small by the standards of even Utah, but if you have a brick building not built with earthquakes in mind… that’s not so great.

In all honesty, “The Davenport” looks like a *lot* of buildings in this part of the midwest. Built a century ago, having seen better days. Like our roads and bridges, the infrastructure has not been well looked after. I won’t be surprised if the next few years are filled with increasing tales of buildings and bridges falling. Imagine if the dozens of trillions dumped down the black hole of welfare were instead spent on repairs, maintenance and replacements of structures that needed it.

 Posted by at 10:13 am
 Older Entries  Newer Entries