Some people have squirrels romping around their back yards, or raccoons or mice or rabbits. I’ve got these:
Jun 032010
Jun 022010
Seems there is to be an episode of “Mad Men” in the upcoming season that is set in a North American Aviation office, sometime in the mid 1960’s. I provided several drawings and bits of artwork that may or may not appear on screen.
Note: “Mad Men” stars Christina Hendricks:
Everything I provided is at least roughly appropriate for the vague timeframe, though some might be a little “advanced.” A lot of what I provided has, to my knowledge, not been publicized before… so you might see some interesting stuff there. I’m hoping to hear back on what got used and how. Maybe get some photos or some such. The new season starts July 25, and this is supposed to be the 5th episode.
So if you are a fan of the show and want to make sure you have all the merchandizing goodies, then your best course of action right now is to buy ALL of my available aircraft and spacecraft drawings. You wouldn’t want to miss out, would you?
On a completely separate matter, if you are curious as to what “out of my league” means, it means this:
Jun 022010
Police today found the body of a gunman who shot dead at least four people after going on a bloody rampage in the Lake District.
Derrick Bird, 52, was found in woodland near Boot, Cumbria, by police. He had shot himself.
Witnesses today described horrific scenes as the cab driver, who had recently become a grandfather, shot his victims in the head at point blank range.
This can only mean that more laws are required. Pass enough laws, and eventually everyone will obey them, right?
The question is why did this guy go ona shooting rampage?
Muriel Gilpin, 60, postmistress of Arlecdon Post Office, told Mail Online: ‘Everybody knows everybody here. That is why everybody is in shock.
‘He comes into the post office for milk sometimes.
Well, there’s your problem.
Jun 012010
I do believe someone’s in for a reamin’.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/10_are_hurt_in_ny_park_after_m.html
A U.S. Marine Corps aircraft’s powerful propellers whipped up a wind that sent branches hurling off a tree and into a crowd of about 150 people watching a Memorial Day demonstration in a park, leaving 10 people with cuts and other minor injuries, officials and a witness said.
Be sure to watch the video.
Ooops.
Jun 012010
UPDATE: read the comments… now lookin’ extremely unlikely. Bummer.
http://unixronin.dreamwidth.org/715135.html
Well, briefly, what it means – if true – is that Betelgeuse could be within as little as weeks of a Type II (core collapse) supernova. (Astronomers have considered for some time that Betelgeuse has the potential to go supernova any time in the next thousand years or so. “Any time” may just turn out to be rather sooner than expected.)
IF this happens, not to put too fine a point on it, it will almost undoubtedly be among the most dramatic astronomical events ever observed by human eyes. A type II supernova can briefly outshine an entire galaxy … and this one will be only a little over five hundred LY away. The supernova that created the Crab Nebula, SN 1054, was bright enough to see in daylight for 23 days, and remained visible for 653 days … and it was 6,300 LY away. Betelgeuse is almost 12 times closer, and can be expected to appear around 140 times brighter by virtue of that alone. And as noted at the beginning of this post, Betelgeuse is the ninth largest star known to exist in the universe.
IF this happens, it will be one hell of a show. The down side, of course, is that the Orion constelaltion will be forever destroyed. But, them’s the breaks. If it does happen in the next few weeks, it’ll be a daytime supernova, as Orion and Betelgeuse are above the horizon during daylight hours now. Woulda been better as a nighttime show, of course.
Jun 012010
The plan had been for Mark to go back to the midwest to become a housecat. But in the two weeks that the visitors were here, he never got over “the splats.” This made a 1300 mile auto trip seem ill-advised. So, a kitten went back, and Mark returned to the outdoors.
Fingers got moved into the basement to serve as a back cat for the midwest trip. But for various reasons, not least of which being Fingers ability to escape (which again made an auto trip ill advised), she didn’t get selected to go. Still, she’s a hell of a good cat.
While the visitors were here, there was a scare when she’d disappeared. I’d previously mentioned her disappearance and injured reappearance (http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=6122 and the comments there). One thing not mentioned previously was that while she was originally vanished, her *corpse,* car-encountered, seemed to appear at the roadside. It was only while digging the hole in the back yard (ye gods I hate having to do that) that I noticed that her distinctive neck wound (from here: http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=4191) was absent. A day or two later she re-appeared, with the wounded leg.
So after all that, I decided that I really didn’t want to boot her out the door only to have her get wounded some more and eventually squished by a car. So… she is now cat number three in Lowther’s House Of Aerospace, Cats, And No Chance Of Scoring Ever.
She’s clearly not overly fond of being a housecat. She spends a great deal of her time trying to get *out.* Since the temperatures are a bit cool, that’s fine… but before long it’ll hot up and the windows’ll ahve to open… which means I’ll need to armor plate the window screens. A project already underway. I’m trying to not make the place *too* redneck/white trash. Distressingly, chickenwire screens would be just the thing but… damn. Even *I* can see that that would be a bit tacky.
So, now there are three cats. However, this again might prove to be a temporary setup. I am awaiting word on the results of some tests by doctors which may affect the future of the residents of this house. Notice I said “doctors,” not “veterenarians.”
Jun 012010
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/?fbid=FM3ROWAdq4B
Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have sent
an e-mail to family friends announcing a mutual decision to separate, a longtime family friend told CNN.“We are announcing today that after a great deal of thought and discussion, we have decided to separate,” the message said.
This story is basically just “meh” until you see the relevant Fark headline:
No reason for the split is given.One is left to wonder how they’ll split the megawattage power bills.
One is also left to ponder if maybe the split might have something to do with this:
A young couple have revealed how they fell in love after meeting at a nightclub, moved in together, had a child – and then discovered they were, in fact, half-brother and sister.
The extraordinary discovery was confirmed by DNA testing just last month. It has left the couple stunned and shaken – but they are nonetheless vowing to stay together and have more children.
They both blame the legal system which prevented the young man from being told his true identity. He only discovered who he really was long after he and his half-sister had got together and had the child.
Jun 012010
From 1967, a NASA-Marshal concept for an orbital workshop based on the S-IVb stage of the Saturn V. While it is in some ways recognizable as a relative of Skylab, there are some major differences… chief of these being that the S-II booster stage would stay attached throughout the life of the station. The Early Orbital Space Station was seen as a more advanced derivative of the Orbital Workshop concept, taking the idea closer to being a true space station rather than a preliminary experimental workshop.
Another major change from Skylab was the deletion of the tank bulkhead separating the hydrogen and oxygen tanks, thus producing one large pressurized volume.
The “Advanced Workshop,” basically two Skylabs linked airlock to airlock, was expected to have a crew of 3 to 6, and be operational from 1969-1972 timeframe. The EOSS was expected to have a crew of 6 to 9, and be operational in the 1971 to 1973 period. With the S-II attached, the EOSS could be “tumbled” end over end to provide artificial gravity.
Jun 012010
http://www.atlassociety.org/cth-13-2311-Atlas_movie_5_29_2010.aspx
John Aglialoro has gone public with his latest project to film Atlas Shrugged: an independent production set to begin filming June 11. Aglialoro decided to go forward on his own after the latest venture with Lionsgate Studios collapsed early this year.
After 17 years of working with major studios, only to see projects peter out from studio delay, unworkable scripts, and balky stars, Aglialoro has taken the entrepreneurial helm. Working with screenwriter Brian Patrick O’Toole, he has completed a script covering the first part of Rand’s novel (through the run of the John Galt Line and its aftermath).
Aglialoro expects the film to be released by the first quarter of 2011. He currently projects a three-movie sequence…
Yeah, well, we’ll see. As influential and depressingly prophetic as Atlas Shrugged is, it’s a hugenormous plodding unfilmable monstrocity filled with hideously long monologues that whack you upside the head with The Message.
Perhaps more filmable, and certainly more enjoyable, would be L. Neil Smith’s “The Probability Broach.” I’d pay good money to see a good movie version of that.
Jun 012010
I’ve seen some recent yappage about using a nuke to close off the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. It seems the Soviets may have done this sort of thing before. Here’s a video of one such leak & blast. It’s narrated in English, which seems odd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU
I have to admit some doubts about whether this’d really be a good idea.