110 years in prison for selling flat pieces of metal.
Apr 242023
Apr 202023
Well, it got off the pad. That’s good. But at least six of the engines didn’t seem to be burning, and the whole stack started tumbling just before stage sep… and then the stages didn’t sep.
But it got not just off the pad, but away from the pad, and made it a good way toward first stage burnout before things went sideways. So… a qualified woohoo.
EDIT: Just saw a different launch angle: It clawed its way off the pad at something of an angle. The thrust vector seems to have been off from the beginning; SpaceX is probably lucky they didn’t lose the pad.
Seems relevant:
Nailed it.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/FC5wo1eppH
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) April 20, 2023
Six of the 33 engines weren’t running:
Apr 202023
Potatoes are better than human blood for making space concrete bricks, scientists say
Potato starch was used to create bricks from simulated Martian soil. 55 kilos of dehydrated taters resulted in about 200 bricks. Many thousands would be needed to make something the size of a house, so that’s a lot of po-tay-toes. Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a Martian brick production facility.
But that wasn’t the weird part of the report: blood and urine were also studied as binding agents for the bricks. Bleah.
Apr 182023
1 person killed, multiple injured in NYC parking garage collapse
Things in this country have gone from “weird” to “concerning” to “downright embarrassing.”
Good thing the mayor of New York has his priorities in the right place:
Apr 182023
I haven’t flown in years. The last few experiences were *terrible.* So how’s it going these days? Maybe it’s better…
I am not part of the community that believes children/babies shouldn’t fly HOWEVER, I do believe certain communities do not properly manage their children in public and I understand why that might drive someone to lose their mind. pic.twitter.com/qAGYviNlye
— I ❤️ Jews, Please dont close my accounts. (@LaCienegaBlvdss) April 18, 2023
We are all either this guy or this woman. pic.twitter.com/TNTmlQbeak
— Observations from Life 🎙 (@ObsFromLife) April 18, 2023
Yeah… I think I’m good staying on the ground. Stuck in a tube with a screaming child? No thanks. Stuck in a tube with a screaming adult? No thanks.
Apr 152023
Something failed on the launch tower and fell the full length of it, sending out a shower of sparks. Seems like the man-carrying elevator suffered a problem and the counterweight plummeted. This is doubtless not great news for the planned Monday launch.
So, yeah. Another “infrastructure oopsie.” Hmmm.
Here is another angle showing what appears to be some kind of electrical short resulting in an object falling into the base of the tower.
🎥@LabPadre pic.twitter.com/VWqri1yS0N
— Zack Golden (@CSI_Starbase) April 15, 2023
🚀Sparks Fell From the Orbital Launch Tower🚀
At 1:47AM 2023-04-15 sparks rained down from the orbital launch tower (OLT) at the #SpaceX #Starbase rocket launch complex.
The sparks may have been some kind of late night welding or grinding, maybe some kind of mishap.
🎥LabPadre pic.twitter.com/WMC9NCNnn2
— Starbase Watcher 🚀 (@watchstarbase) April 15, 2023
Apr 142023
Netflix will be releasing a “documentary” about Queen Cleopatra VII. This “documentary” is apparently based on the fictional notion that she was a sub-Saharan African. This is a long-debunked and remarkably silly idea, but welcome to 2023, I guess. Here’s a good takedown:
When you race swap enough fictional characters, you start in on race swapping the historical characters. then you re-write history entirely. then you *erase* and *invent* history. And then society is whatever those in power want it to be.
Apr 082023
So there I am minding my own business when a text message comes in from my dad. Nothing unusual there. But the message is long, rambling, kinda stream-of-consciousness, seemingly part of a conversation I wasn’t a part of. I have received messages meant for other people before, but the format of the message, and the length of it, were quite unlike my dad’s normal type of messages. So I send him a “WTF” response. A few minutes later, clarification: the phone *listened* to my dad as he held a conversation with someone else, transcribed both sides of the conversation into a single kinda gibberishy paragraph, and then decided to send that transcript to me.
At no point in the process was my dad clued in to this; the phone did it itself.
So… who else gets these transcripts? The NSA? FBI? IRS? The Russians? And as seems most likely, the Chinese?
Something to keep in mind: if your phone, or Alexa, Siri, HAL, or any other modern device *can* hear you, it *does* hear you. And sometimes it does stuff with what it hears.
Now pardon me while I wrap my cell phone in a few layers of tinfoil.
Apr 062023
National Weather Service confirms a tornado touched down a few blocks from here. It was puny as such things go… EF-1, winds of 95 miles per hour. But it did raise a ruckus.
Destructive Winds, Very Large Hail & Tornadoes: April 4-5th, 2023
| Date | 04/04/2023 |
| Time (Local) | 09:41 AM – 09:43 AM |
| EF Rating | EF-1 |
| Est. Peak Winds | 95 mph |
| Path Length | 1.6 miles |
| Max Width | 150 yards |
| Injuries/Deaths | 0 |
| Summary:
A brief tornado touched down in Rock Island, Illinois. The tornado knocked over and snapped large trees and produced minor damage to several roofs. Widespread damaging straight line winds up to 90 mph also caused significant damage across the city. |
|
Apr 062023
In Colorado Springs:
Former D20 student accused of planning attacks on three campuses
“D20” here is “district 20.” The new trend isn’t “19-year-old tries to shoot up a middle school and some churches.” Guess what it is.
Go on, guess.
Here’s a subtle hint:
William Whitworth who identifies as “Lilly” has been charged with felony criminal attempt to commit murder …
Did you spot it?
That’s right: the mass shooter was arrested *before* the mass shooting.
Nothing else here is noteworthy. Nothing.