March 2009 – Page 6 – The Unwanted Blog

See, THIS is why I publish APR!!!!

APR, blather, dumbassery, humor, news, nukes, science, weapons 3 Responses »

Mar 092009

PLANS TO refurbish Trident nuclear weapons had to be put on hold because US scientists forgot how to manufacture a component of the warhead, a US congressional investigation has revealed.

The US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “lost knowledge” of how to make a mysterious but very hazardous material codenamed Fogbank. ….

Neither the NNSA nor the UK Ministry of Defence would say anything about the nature or function of Fogbank. But it is thought by some weapons experts to be a foam used between the fission and fusion stages of a thermonuclear bomb. US officials have said that manufacturing the material requires a solvent cleaning agent which is “extremely flammable” and “explosive”. The process also involves dealing with “toxic materials” hazardous to workers.

I wish I could say this sort of thing was rare, but it’s disturbingly common. I’ve seen it multiple times in my own career. My favorite incident occured one day when I was sitting bored out of my mind in my cubicle at ATK , and the phone rang. It was someone from elsewhere on the plant; they were having a problem with a coating for some igniter components for a rocket program that ATK inherited from United Tech, when United Tech went under in 2004. The instructions to make the coating came with the rocket, but no matter what they did, the techs couldn’t actually make the stuff. By this point, United Tech near San Jose had been abandoned, and the buildings bulldozed. There was nobody there to ask anymore. But someone found that I had worked there, so they called me up in hopes that I might have been in touch with a former co-worker who knew something, *anything,* about this particular program. When they explained the coating issue to me, they had to wait a minute or so for me to stop laughing.

As it happens, *I* was the one who had cooked up that coating at Untied Tech. I was one of two guys working this issue there; it was the other fellers program, I was providing assistance. Shortly after we got the coating to work, he left United Tech. And apparently he left before all the paperwork could be updated. So the techs at ATK knew what most (but not all) of the ingredients for the coating were, but not the manufacturing process. And there were a grand total of two people on the entire friggen’ planet who could tell them how to fix it. And through sheer dumb luck, they managed to find one of them right off the bat. But if I hadn’t worked there, or if nobody had thought to call me, Odin only knows how many taxpayer-funded manhours would have been blown trying to figure out how to make a coating that this other feller and I whipped up in about 15 minutes.

Heh.

Good luck with “Fogbank.”

So I publish APR and sell aerospace documents, in no small part to help make sure that not all this knowledge is lost.

AST-102 SST

aircraft, drawings, projects 1 Response »

Mar 092009

Reported to NASA-Langley in 1979 was the AST-102 (Advanced Supersonic Technology), designed by Vought. Cruise speed of Mach 2.7, with seating for 273 passengers.

Non-religiousity on the rise

blather, politics, religion 7 Responses »

Mar 092009

From Fox News:

A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.

On the one hand, I don’t have a problem with people becoming less religious. Let’s face it, some of the worst episodes in human history were caused by religion, and religious beliefs today sometimes stand in stark opposition to fact. However, where problems arise is when people dump religion and then replace it with something equally as irrational, or with nothing at all. The Commies got rid of their previous belief in Invisible Sky Buddies, and replaced it with a belief that Communism actually made sense, a belief every bit as unfounded in fact and logic as the goofiest religion. And since they elevated their new wacky beliefs to the level of Official State Faith, with the secular equivalent of anti-blasphemy laws, the supposedly non-religious Commies had themselves some witch burnings worse than those perpetrated by those claiming to be working for God.

Modern Europe has done a much more complete deletion of religion than the US so far, and fortunately they seem to not have replaced religion with Communism or Nazism. Instead, from here it kinda looks like they’ve replaced religion with a bland belief in the equality of all viewpoints. Which, while it sounds nice, ain’t. Some viewpoints are just plain wrong. The simple fact seems to be that humans have a built-in need to Believe; as with all things, there is a bell curve… some humans have a very strong need, some a very weak. But the need for faith in something seems to be ever present. And if you get rid of one system of faith, you’d damned well better have another one lined up, or otherwise you’ll just start accumulating random bits of fluff in its place. And random bits of fluff do not hold up very well against concerted attacks by more unified systems.

Too many lose their religious faith but don’t replace it with anything of value. Like, for instance, a basic understanding of scientific principles, a concept of cause and effect. Too often a faith in a god is replaced with a faith in “the basic goodness of Man,” or “tolerance,” or “diversity is our strength” and other equally ridiculous PC rubbish. Those who replace “something” with “nothing” are easy marks for those who have some othe, more seductive – or aggressive – “something” to push on ’em.

“Watchmen” review: Way to completely miss the point

blather, dumbassery, humor, science fiction 4 Responses »

Mar 092009

If you’re in the market for unintentionally hilarious movie reviews, then this one from Debbie Schlussel about “Watchmen” should just about have you covered. Behold:

It’s 1985 and Nixon is President. We’ve won in Vietnam. Oh, and Henry Kissinger has a Russian accent. And Ronald Reagan is thinking of running for President in 1988. Wow, isn’t that cool that they got it wrong on purpose? I’m so amazed at this “high-brow art” of deliberately getting dates and timelines wrong, you know, just to be “artistic,” and get the drooling of the critics. That is sooooo genius. Like way totally cool.

Hey Debbie: The book was written in 1985, but was meant to show an *alternate* 1985 where Nixon had won in Viet Nam (by using the godlike services of Dr. Manhattan), and who was consequently so popular that the Constitution was changed to allow him to run for office more than twice…. which he did, successfully.

There’s another aspect of the movie that has clearly disturbed Debbie:

Oh, and don’t forget another superhero’s swinging computer-generated penis frequently in your face on-screen.

Many scenes of Dr. Manhattan’s computer generated penis swinging about;

terrible computer generated images (including the penis)

Gosh, how horrid.

“My God, cover yourself. I didn’t live a thousand years and travel a quadrillion miles to look at another man’s gizmo.”

Now, I’ve as little interest in looking at another man’s junk as the head of President Nixon, but getting upset about it in a rated-R movie? Pretty damned weak. And for those who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, Dr. Manhattan is not your normal character. He’s the only true “super” hero in the “Watchmen” universe. In traditional comic book form, he was originally a scientist who was blasted into subatomic particles due to a lab accident. But when he finally reformed himself, he was no longer human. He looks human… sorta. But he doesn’t think as a human anymore, doesn’t feel as a human, and doesn’t give a rats ass about humans or human problems anymore. He can teleport across interplanetary distances. He can walk across the surface fo the sun. He can split himself into many different copies, and then recombine. He can turn dirt into giant flying glass clocklike mechanisms with a thought. He can vaporise people with a glance. He no longer lives linearly in time; he’s equally present in past, present and future. So… why the hell would someone like that worry about making sure his peener was carefully hidden from the fainting class? “Watchmen” is filled with people dressed as all the usual classes of comic book heroes… you’ve got the guy in the trenchcoat and mask; the guy in animal-themed armor; the guy in flashy patriotic armor; the guy in gold-plated blinginess; the hot chick in skin-tight latex. But they are, in the end, just regular schmoes in funny costumes. Dr. Manhattans complete lack of any kind of costume at all is a useful mechanism to show just how different he is: he doesn’t need a costume at all.

In the movie, Dr. Manhattan’s schlong does nothing but just sorta hang there and tell you “This guy ain’t right. His morals are not yours, and he’s powerful enough that you’d best not pester him about his enormous blue schwanzstucker.” Getting all huffy because a computer generated wang appears onscreen – and unlike what Debbie says, it’s hardly a screen-filler – is a sure sign that one has issues.

Pulse Detonation Engine testbed: “Borealis”

aircraft, photography 2 Responses »

Mar 082009

On display at the USAF Museum (in the experimental plane annex…. ya gotta take a bus) is the Air Force Research Lab/Innovative Science Solitions Inc. “Borealis,” a Scaled Composites Long-EZ kit plane with substantial modifications. The propellor and associated propulsion system were replaced with an experimental pulse detonation engine, necessitating substnatiall changes to the airframe, including the massive bulge visible on the underside. PDE’s work by spraying small puffs of fuel into an air-filled tube and detonating them, rather than simply burning the mix. In principle this leads to simpler engines with greater fuel savings compared to conventional turbojets. So far, though, the engines look to be pretty damned heavy.

NOTE: Researching all this wacky stuff takes time and money. You can support the cause by Buying My Stuff, which includes aerospace drawings and documents, as well as the journal of unbuilt aircraft and spacecraft projects, Aerospace Projects Review.

Or just plain Give Me Money.

Raedthinn: more comfortable than you

cats, humor, photography No Responses »

Mar 082009

Odd nuclear turbojet

aircraft, models, nukes, projects 1 Response »

Mar 082009

More screenshots from a 1950’s USAF nuclear aircraft film. Shown here is a model of a nuclear turbojet. Clearly, though, something funny is going on with the design… where’s the air inlet?

Tax revolt: here’s your new meme!

awesomeness, humor, politics No Responses »

Mar 082009

Photos from a “tax revolt”recently held in Fullerton, CA:

The spiffy thing here is that the purpose of the rally was not to bitch at the Democrats. Getting angry at Democrats who raise your taxes is kinda like getting mad at a dog that lifts it’s leg on a fire hydrant; it’s what they do. They can’t help it. No, the purpose was to protest Republicans.

Droves of angry taxpayers gathered Saturday to protest tax increases in the recently approved state budget and to rally for the recall of Republicans who supported the increases – or didn’t do enough to stop them. …

They support recall efforts against Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont; state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria; and Assemblyman Jeff Miller, R-Corona.

Awesome. The Republicans need to be smacked around until they get it through their heads that they need to understand what their party principles actually are… and increasing the size, scope and power of government is not what they are supposed to be doing.

But even so, the “Obama lied, the economy died” poster is pretty spiffy. Maybe I should steal that and whip up a batch of t-shirts…

Apparently Obama shops at Wal Mart

dumbassery, news, Obamazombies, politics 3 Responses »

Mar 072009

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK recently visited with President 0bama. Traditionally, the Pres and the PM exchange gifts. So, let’s see how it went…

From the Daily Mail:

The Prime Minister gave Mr Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.

The unique present delighted Mr Obama because oak from the Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880.

Mr Brown also handed over a framed commission for HMS Resolute and a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

OK, that’s pretty spiffy. Unique items of political and historical importance. So, how about the other gift-giver here?

Barack Obama, the leader of the world’s richest country, gave the Prime Minister a box set of 25 classic American films – a gift about as exciting as a pair of socks.

Wow. That’s… that’s just lame. A box of DVD’s? Really? You’re the President of what is still the richest nation on Earth, about to meet the leader of arguably your nation’s staunchest ally, and you have someone pick up something that any schmoe with fifty or a hundred bucks could get at WalMart or Costco?

0bama is doing a bang-up job of demonstrating just what an underprepared buffoon he really is. Never mind the disastrous economic policies he’s cramming down our throats… he doesn’t even have the sense to know when to put a little bit of thought into a gift. A gift that might not even play on British Region 2 DVD players. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head.

Gifts like these are diplomatic niceties, nothing more… and they are gifts that should last for generations. But they should be recognized for the public relations value they have. And DVDs are simple commercial items of no lasting value. Come back in fifty years, first-volumes of historic books and pens made from centuries-old wood from important vessels will still be there (assuming they haven’t been burned to provide a little warmth in the Green future), on dispaly at some Presidental museum, or even on the then-Presidents desk. But DVDs? I suspect DVDs will be as useful in fifty years as reel-to-reel tapes or 8-tracks are today.

I hope 0bama at least had his lackeys take the price tags off ’em.

Never waste a good crisis

dumbassery, news, politics No Responses »

Mar 072009

From Reuters:

Clinton told young Europeans at the European Parliament that global economic turmoil provided a fresh opening. “Never waste a good crisis … Don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security,” she said.

Awesome. That makes me feel *real* good about the future. Especially since this is not the first time this administration has gleefully revelled in the possibility of using misery as a way to further their goals:

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”

This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the sneaking suspicion that these scumbags are willing, nay, eager to precipitate crises. We already know that they are able to do so; Barney Frank has produced a first-rate proof of that by his work in destroying the economy.

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