So SpaceX launched Starship SN11 today. Unfortunately it exploded in flight shortly after the landing burn was initiated; exactly what happened isn’t yet clear. In no small part due to the fact that it couldn’t be seen.
Mar 302021
Mar 272021
Cats are awesome.
I like to think of Oliver here as a role model for the modern American faced with government over-regulation.
Mar 222021
Seems like there aughtta be an easier way. But “easy” is not always “best.” Do things like this and you’ll be able to take on anything.
Mar 192021
Snerk:
And I’m reasonably sure I posted this one before, but… ehhh, can’t be bothered to check, and it’s still funny:
Bonus rounds:
Mar 122021
The “gangsta” in its urban reality is one of the most detrimental forms of human life. Thus it has always been… the “gangster” before the “gangsta,” the pirate, the marauder, all terrible people doing terrible things. And yet… there is a drive behind them that, while aimed badly, can instead be used for good, and the spirit behind them can be at least vaguely seen in those who do great things.
What this world now needs is Space Vikings.
Feb 202021
This training film for US soldiers deployed to Britain during WWII is a little uncomfortable. It comes across as a film made by clueless Hollywood types based on crude cliched British stereotypes… but it was made by the British Ministry of Information. So… I guess it’s cool?
I’m curious whether:
1: The stereotypes were broadly accurate
2: The stereotypes were what the MoI *wanted* to be real
3: The stereotypes were what the MoI wanted the Yanks to *believe*
And interesting ponderable: about 80 years ago, Americans flooded into Britain. They were expected to learn the local customs and laws and to behave themselves accordingly. Feel free to compare and contrast to events from more recent years.
Feb 162021
A followup to yesterday:
The environment will often talk to you and give you hints, subtle or otherwise, that something explosive is coming. (Feel free to interpret this in a political context). In this case, the buildup of a static charge on a mountain can often be heard in the rocks just before a lightning strike. Disregard at your peril.
Feb 142021
Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this era of separateness:
Jan 262021
I’ve found that archives going from pure-paper to digital to be as much a curse as a blessing. Sure, the stuff that gets scanned and placed into publicly accessible archives? Great. But… often enough, archives that scan their stuff often decide that once the original is digitized they have no further use for the original… and it gets thrown away or outright destroyed. that wouldn’t be *too* bad if the scans were good. but too often they’re not. All too often the scans are *crap.* For example, some years back NASA scanned in the files of a deceased engineer. *Lots* of great stuff was scanned and made available. A lot of what the guy had were large format diagrams of hypersonic aircraft… X-24C derivatives, hypersonic research aircraft, HSTs, that sort of thing. What actually got scanned: just the data block. The on-hand scanner was good for letter size, so rather than going to the bother of scanning the large format sheet in chunks, or taking it somewhere than had a large format scanner, whoever did the scanning just scanned, essentially, the title of the thing. And then what? NASA destroyed the originals. You can see the titles, you can see perhaps a piece of a tail or a wingtip… and in all probability that’s all you will *ever* see, because they just couldn’t be bothered.
Recently the “AF FOIA Reading Room” appeared. I’ve found a *few* things of interest on it, one being a summary of the F-108 and B-70 programs. It’s reasonably well illustrated, which is a bonus. Should be great, right? Prepare to be disappointed. Here is the quality of the digitized document… 2-bit black and white at low resolution:
That’s friggen’ craptacular. 2-bit is always the mark of not-giving-a-damn, but to do that with old, clearly time-darkened paper is a crime against humanity. The only way to hope to make anything halfway decent from it is to go through it and manually clean it up. The secondary approach of letting the computer try gives results that are just plain disappointing:
It is *somewhat* clearer. But a whole lot of data is simply lost and unrecoverable, even with manual, skilled and talented cleanup. The “Enhance” button only does so much.
So if *you* have interesting aerospace diagrams and documents, *please* don’t do this. The minimum for text and diagrams is 300 dpi, grayscale, saved in a lossless format such as PNG or TIF. If the diagrams are the slightest bit faded, or if there is anything remotely colorful, scan in full color. Photos and art… full color and consider scanning at 600 or even 1200 dpi. Sure, the file sizes are way bigger. But storage space is vastly cheaper and more abundant than it was just a few years ago. And there are people, AHEM, who will scan this sort of thing for you, just to make sure it’s preserved.
Jan 172021
Concrete collapse videos. Why? Why the frak not, that’s why.
Pro tip: concrete is heavy. Consider adding adequate support underneath. Alternatively: forget all that colonizer STEM stuff. Use “other ways of knowing.” I’m sure that’ll work just great.