Yay! We’re doomed!

 AARRRGH, blather, Meh., news, science  No Responses »
Jul 062019
 

It’s time to play “compare the headline with the content!”

Headline:

NASA asteroid DANGER: A 2,700 MEGATON asteroid might hit Earth this October

Content:

There is a small chance – about one in 11,000,000 – Asteroid FT3 will crash into us in the next three months.

The odds of impact translate into a 0.0000092% chance of cataclysm or a 99.9999908% chance the asteroid will miss Earth.

This merits “DANGER” I guess. By that measure, I guess I’m at risk of my books getting picked up by a publisher AND of becoming every bits as popular and rich as J.K. Rowling.   Which I guess means I’m also at risk of eventually posting tweets like “No, really, Nyarlathotep was gay the whole time!”

All that said, asteroid 2007 FT3  seems an interesting prospect. Obviously an Earth-crosser, it is a not inconsiderable chunk of stuff at 340 meters in diameter with a mass of 5.5e+10 kg. There are several very good reasons to go pay it a visit:

  1. Pure science
  2. Mining, either for preliminary experiments or actual practice
  3. Nuke it. Use it as a testing ground for Orion-style propulsive pulse units. This could be for pure science, to test the pulse units, to see how asteroids structurally respond, to see how efficiently the pulse mechanically couples to the target, to actually blast it into flinders for further science. Or it could be for practical purpose, for diverting the asteroid into high Earth or Lunar orbit, or perhaps for plowing it directly into a lunar impact. Why would anyone do the latter? Because it’s awesome, that’s why.

 

Date
(yyyy-mm-dd.dd)		 Distance
(rEarth)		 Width
(rEarth)		 Sigma
Impact		 Sigma
LOV		 Stretch
LOV
(rEarth)		 Impact
Probability		 Impact
Energy
(Mt)		 Palermo
Scale		 Torino
Scale
2019-10-03.93 65.92 4.67e+1 1.390 -0.52688 3.75e+4 9.2e-8 2.670e+03 -3.17 0
2024-10-02.85 52.12 4.74e+1 1.079 -0.82761 5.48e+4 7.5e-8 2.724e+03 -3.73 0
2025-10-03.64 134.19 4.71e+1 2.826 -0.34668 5.39e+4 3.2e-9 2.637e+03 -5.16 0
2029-10-02.90 125.36 4.56e+1 2.727 -1.03451 1.21e+6 1.2e-10 2.762e+03 -6.74 0
2030-10-03.62 36.39 4.77e+1 0.742 -0.60895 6.54e+4 9.9e-8 2.685e+03 -3.87 0
2030-10-03.69 65.61 4.61e+1 1.403 -0.52780 3.66e+6 9.4e-10 2.670e+03 -5.89 0
2030-10-03.69 64.55 4.74e+1 1.341 -0.53047 9.10e+5 4.0e-9 2.671e+03 -5.27 0
2031-10-04.25 166.23 4.73e+1 3.491 -0.25267 6.72e+4 3.2e-10 2.618e+03 -6.40 0
2034-10-03.10 143.27 5.24e+1 2.715 -1.07823 2.94e+4 4.3e-9 2.768e+03 -5.33 0
2034-10-03.12 136.19 4.12e+1 3.279 -1.05902 4.80e+4 6.2e-10 2.766e+03 -6.18 0
 Posted by at 12:39 pm

Visited by an aerial murder machine

 awesomeness, critters, photography, Utah  No Responses »
Jul 052019
 

Stepped out this evening to go for a walk and found this feller next to my shop. A juvenile hawk, it didn’t seem to be in a hurry to wander off. Some neighbors and I stood around looking at it like… well, like people standing around looking at a hawk. As this was well after the Department of Wildlife had closed for the night (and the weekend), we got lucky in waving down a passing state trooper. Who, as it turns out, was a former wildlife warden and was about as nonchalant as you could hope. He simply and easily bundled it in a thick blanket and took it off to a bird rehab place, as it was too young to fly back up to where it should have been.

I knew something was up about 20 minutes earlier. There were a bunch of birds chirping their damnfool heads off all day… and they suddenly got *real* quiet. At the same time, Speedbump was in a back window and suddenly went buggo, running from window to window.

 Posted by at 10:19 pm

This guy doesn’t seem to fit in

 art, awesomeness, history, Hmm..., youtube  No Responses »
Jul 052019
 

This here Britainlander lives in London and makes his own clothes in the style of a “Regency gentleman.” For those unaware – and honestly, why would anyone be – the “Regency era” was a period of British history roughly between the time King George III (you know, the crazy one who lost the Brits the United States) was booted from power for being a nutjob and the installment of Queen Victoria. It would have been a perfect time for the Brits to boot *all* the “royals” and build themselves a republic modeled along the lines of the US. But it wasn’t to be, and now they get to look forward to installing an elderly King Charles.

Anyway.

Anywhere else, a guy going about dressed in the historic garb of his ethnic group would be of almost no newsworthiness whatsoever. A Japanese person wearing a kimono? A Sikh in a turban? An Arab in a… well whatever they call those robes? Meh, to all. But this guy is in Siddiq Khan’s London, and a white guy dressed like a white guy from 200 years ago is BBC Newsworthy:

I can’t say as I think much of that hat, but otherwise, hey, he looks pretty snazzy. Just so long as he doesn’t wave around one of those “Betsy Ross flags…”

Me, I’m a fashion slob. I choose my clothes based on “does it fit?” and “is it cheap?” I give approximately zero thought to fashion because… well, why would I? But if I did… hmmm.

Make some adjustments (better boots), update some of the materials (titanium mail seems like it aught to be a thing), replace the wood shield with one of kevlar), perhaps replace the axe with a shotgun, and that seems like just the outfit for a modern gentleman about town. Especially if it is a town that is still plagued with Antifa…

 

 Posted by at 12:18 am

The ugly truth of the Fourth of July

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., history, Meh., politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jul 042019
 

The real “ugly truth” is that it brings the lowest form of anti-American scumbag out of the woodwork to spew their ridiculous nonsense.

What’s the lowest form of anti-American? An American anti-American. Behold:

Fourth of July’s ugly truth exposed: The Declaration of Independence is sexist, racist, prejudiced

Summary: pissing and moaning that a document written in 1776 was written using the language and ideas and beliefs of 1776, and, shockingly, not those of Current Year. I’m honestly surprised that this piece doesn’t complain that the declaration didn’t discuss the rights of gays and transsexuals and nonbinaries and furries (hey, 4chan: get to work on getting the leftnuts PO’ed at the author for leaving these marginalized folks out of his article). In the future this same class of reprehensible muttonhead will complain that the DoI didn’t include clones and AI and uplifted chimps and Europan oceanic bacteria and transdimensional entities and imaginary magical unicorns.

 Posted by at 11:39 pm

Cruise Missile propfan

 aircraft, eBay, history, models, nukes, projects  No Responses »
Jul 042019
 

Someone is selling a contractors model of an engine for a cruise missile on ebay. The engine is an unducted aft fan design. This type of engine was proposed for use on jetliners; it provides fuel efficiency benefits but in the end the brain-melting noise it put out doomed the concept. Not only did it bother people, it also tended to buzz the bejeebers out of the aircraft structure. In the end very high bypass conventional turbofan engines proved capable of doing the job. Noise, of course, would not have been much of an issue for a cruise missile, but since this design was put forward (circa 1989) the US has not fielded any new major cruise missiles.

Note:”TCAE /GEAE” likely stands for Teledyne Continental Aviation and Engineering / General Electric Aviation Engines. Teledyne CAE was known as such between 1969 and 1999, an unhelpful 30-year span.

Vtg USAF TCAE/GEAE Propfan Engine Cruise Missile App 1/5 Scale Contractor Model

 Posted by at 10:44 pm

YouTubers worth watching: the Critical Drinker

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., humor, politics, science fiction, wisdom, youtube, YouTubers worth watching  No Responses »
Jul 042019
 

There are lots of pop culture critics on YouTube. Most are, bluntly… meh. Some, like Dictor von Doomcock, are on the mark, funny and insightful… and angry, because what’s being done with modern mythology would make any rational man angry. But then there’s the Critical Drinker, who is on the mark, funny and insightful… and drunk, because what’s being done with modern mythology will drive many a rational man to booze.

 

 Posted by at 4:26 pm

Fairing entry is f’n gorgeous

 art, awesomeness, history, news, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jul 032019
 

Huh.

SpaceX put a camera in the fairings used on the Falcon 9. They finally recovered one, and the results are spectacular.

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 11:59 pm
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