Aug 202019
 

I had a number of comments to make about the intelligence, ethics, parentage and proper handling/punchability of the domestic terrorists known as “Antifa,” but upon reflection I’ve decided that discretion is the better part of avoiding potential issues, and I’ll just leave this here.  Once again, free advice for the Trump 2020 campaign… the Dems don’t condemn Antifa. Record & broadcast for campaign ads.

If you are not anti-Communist, you’re a Communist, and that means you are to be not only suspected of wanting to commit another Holodomor, you are to be held liable for the last one *and* the other hundred million or so people murdered by Communism in the name of kleptocracy and totalitarianism.

 Posted by at 10:01 am
Aug 192019
 

Continuing. This time, discussion of possibilities of higher thrust SSMEs including the SSME-150 with an extendable nozzle. Once again this would be for increased payload capability, in particular 32,000 pounds to polar orbit from Vandenburg.

Hey. Hey.

Tips


 

 Posted by at 10:08 pm
Aug 192019
 

There is currently an item on ebay that the *title* of had me very interested, but the actual photos fire off my BS alarms:

North American XF-108 Rapier Aircraft Contractor Model / Topping Precise / Allyn

A vintage F-108 display model made by the NAA model shop or by an official contractor for NAA would be a very interesting item. But… that’s not what we’ve got here. Observe:

This is not a North American Aviation design. It is, in fact, copied from the 1960 ITC “F-108 Rapier” model kit. This was designed before the F-108 design was revealed to the public, and was basically a fictional concept based on the North American “Navaho” intercontinental cruise missile.

The model is not actually an assembled ITC Rapier kit. It looks like one of the Asian specially-made “genuine Philippine mahogany” models that you can have made. Which is fine if that’s what you want, but that’s not what the ebay listing says it is. Quote: “For sale is a rare XF-108 Rapier contractor style model. I am unsure of the manufacturer -possibly Topping/Precise. ” Note: “style.”

As of this writing there are 15 bids, up to $140. This seems a bit much for a meh-quality modern replica of a meh-quality model kit. If this is something you’re interested in bidding on, keep in mind that this is *not* a North American Aviation design, but a design by a short-lived (1957-64) model kit company that had no special insight.

 Posted by at 8:48 am
Aug 192019
 

I recently watched the Clint Eastwood movie “The Mule” about an old feller who falls into the role of drug running, driving a truck from city to city with a hundred kilos of coke in the back. He is successful at it because he’s a good, nondescript driver. It got me thinking… in ten to twenty years, technology should provide an even better mule: the self driving car. Even better: self driving Uber-like cars.

Consider: you want to transport two hundred kilos of drugs, or ammunition, or vintage MAGA hats, or guns, or Jordan Peterson books, or whatever is illegal in the 2030’s, from Orlando to Anaheim. You use a burner phone and a non-personalized account to call up a HAL-Uber. It meets you somewhere public yet quiet; you load up the car, install a realistic mannequin (a second-hand “Real Doll,” perhaps) in one of the front seats, then send it on its way. You aim it towards, say, an unoccupied house at the target city. If it all goes to plan, you have some of your boys waiting there to unload. If it gets intercepted en route… shrug. You lose the shipment, but you don’t lose the driver. Probably a minimal concern given the line of business you’re in, but a driver un-caught is a driver who can’t rat you out. You could always hire a  *number* of such self-driving cars, either to spread the load or to serve as distractions and decoys.

There are doubtless a lot more details than that; my experience in the field of drug running goes little further than knowing that there are storage compartments under the floor panels of your standard Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 Light Freighter that can be used for smuggling things. Such as how the frak does an unoccupied self-driving vehicle drive for thousands of miles without someone onboard to either refuel or recharge it. But the big question is how does Uber, Lyft, or whoever *prevent* the use of their vehicles for such an obvious illegal use? Package delivery services at least theoretically prevent this sort of thing by occasionally scanning and/or drug sniffing the packages they handle. But if the HAL-Ubers have drug sniffers built into them, they’re going to lose a *lot* business by constantly ratting out the drugged-up partiers loading into them. I suppose AIs could track the origin/destination points and come to learn that certain combinations – starting in some quiet out of the way park, ending in an abandoned Chinese restaurants parking lot, perhaps – is the sort of thing that the DEA would be interested in. But in that case, the cartels will simply change up the plans while hiring a bunch of decoys to run the “expected” routes while filled with candy bars.

 

 Posted by at 8:10 am
Aug 182019
 

Netflix has aired their Invader Zim movie “Enter the Florpus.” Is it any good? Is it, like a whole raft of other nostalgia-based revivals, any good? Or is it just a series of memberberries and woke nonsense?

In short, I was surprised at just how good it was. They brought back the same writers, the same voice actors, the same guy to do the music. And it all freakin’ worked. If you were a fan of Zim back in the day, you’ll almost certainly be a fan of Zim today. If you have never been introduced to Zim… well, Enter the Florpus won’t exactly be the best possible introduction, but it should do the job. (Where would someone go to watch Invader Zim these days except by buying the DVDs?)

The writing is good, the animation is well done, the characters are the same. Zim still chews up the scenery; GIR is still an adorable freakin’ homicidal psychopath, Dib is still a dollar store Mulder and Gaz still lives to torment him. The only change of note is a revision of the design of Professor Membrane, for reasons that are mostly unexplored. He’s now stouter for some reason, more hair and with longer gloves (though *that* is explained). But he’s still a spectacular supergenius, even if he is a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to accepting the reality of aliens. He is now a bigger, more important character than he typically was back in the day, and when he decides to do somethin’ about somethin’, it’s worth seeing:

“Enter the Florpus” is just plain old-school Invader Zim fun, well worth watching. I don’t know if there are talks afoot to revive the series, but if Florpus is an indication, a series revival would be well appreciated.

Importantly, Zim retains the zenith position in the field of maniacal cackling, a skill everyone should practice.

 

 

 

My man. Invader Zim, patron saint of emotional restraint in the face of awesomeness. The above image would make an accurate image of me, standing on a bluff near Jackass Flats watching the first US Space Force Orion battleship taking to the heavens.

 Posted by at 8:09 pm
Aug 182019
 

Continuing. This time, discussion of possibilities of swapping out existing Orbiter structures with graphite composites. The advantage would be lowered dry mass of the Orbiter, leading to potentially higher payload performance. This would, presumably, be of interest for USAF launches from Vandenburg, a possibility that Challenger put to bed.

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 Posted by at 3:47 am