July 2010 – Page 7 – The Unwanted Blog

Naked Women

awesomeness, blather, humor 3 Responses »

Jul 132010

Even though Nekkid Chicks is clearly a more direct path to the monies than whatever the hell it is that I’m doing, I have so far refrained from posting nudie shots on the blog. It’s a blog for the whole goddamned family, you see, and nakidity might offend some stuck-up jagoff. Well, here, for the very first time on the Unwanted Blog, I’m posting images of a Naked Woman:

So, does that give you the warm fuzzies? If so, rejoice! For there is an entire calendar of this:

http://www.geekosystem.com/x-ray-pin-up-calendar/

Medical imaging firm EIZO wanted to come up with a catchy giveaway that highlighted their expertise in “high-precision displays for the examination and diagnosis of radiographs.” The result, dreamt up by German ad firm BUTTER: A pin-up calendar in which women, truly, truly bear all. As the promotion concept puts it, “Very popular among craftsmen but quite new for medics: Pin-up calendars. At last, one which shows absolutely every detail.”

Genius: Two Birds With One Stone

blather, I'm from the government, news 4 Responses »

Jul 132010

Problem 1: NASA needs an “ethnic female” robot:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=34482

NASA/DFRC has a requirement for (quantity 2) Interactive Robot Characters with accessories.

The specifications are: Two different interactive robot chadd additional comfort to a more diverse audience racters will be required for usage with the varied targeted audiences. One male “wise-looking” robot such will be suitable for all audiences whereby a female of somewhat ethnic background may add additional comfort to a more diverse audience or when wanting a female to speak at an all female event.

Problem 2: NASA needs Muslim Outreach (although the White House is backing away from that, and basically calling NASA Admin Bolden a liar).

Now, I’ve seen robots that are made to look like humans. So far, they kinda suck. They’re not even at Uncanny Valley yet… just “overpriced sex doll valley.” The supposed purpose of the ethnic female robot is to “add additional comfort to a more diverse audience.” And yet, I’ve never seen a humanoid bot that would “add comfort” to much of anything… at best they add confusion and awkwardness. They may be modeled to have an external rubber mask that can be quite humanlike, but as soon as they open their yap or start “emoting,” they just look wrong.

How to solve all these issues?

Easy! NASA just need to make the “ethnic female” robot into a fundamentalist Muslim ethnic female robot! Once it’s done up in that Ninja/Sith getup, the lack of any human-ness becomes moot.

Quick! Which one’s the robot? You can’t tell, can you. So, NASA, when you get yout “ethnic female robot,” and test runs show it to be pretty unimpressive, just throw a tarp over it and cut some eyeholes (or not), and you’ll be good to go!

See? They’re even giving drivers licences to Terminators these days:

This is exactly the sort of thinking that NASA doesn’t seem to have these days. If they’d just hire me (I’d be a cheap consultant, no more thant $150/hour), I could solve *all* their problems for ’em.

When journalism-grammar goes bad

AARRRGH, blather, news 7 Responses »

Jul 132010

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Dad-Shot-in-Front-of-Sons-During-Robbery-98322569.html

Boy Chases Away Man Who Shot His Dad with Kitchen Knife

How do you shoot someone with a kitchen knife?

A Broward dad is lucky to be alive after he was shot during a botched robbery attempt. And he has his 9-year-old son to thank for it.

The dad has his son to thank for the robbery?

The 9-year-old got a kitchen knife in attempt to ward off the gunman, who fled the scene.

Muh?

Now, look, I try to avoid the whole Grammar Nazi thing (in no small part due to the fact that as a typist I suck, with the consequence that I have a lot of mis-sleppings), but sometimes you gotta kinda wonder if journalists and their editors really have a good grasp of the English language.

What I’ve Been Up To

aircraft, awesomeness, blather, models, new products, science fiction 17 Responses »

Jul 132010

You might have noticed a slight dropoff on rants & aerospace of late. Why? I’ve been deeply involved in creating this:

It’s been something of a challenge (though not as much as the Hammerhead… not yet, at any rate), but it appears to be coming along magnificently. A few more major structures to add (cockpits, underside bumps, landing gear). and then a whole lot of details (guns, turrets, weapons pods, vents, grills, surface details, etc).

Am I getting paid enough for this? Oh, hell no.

UPDATE:

————–

UPDATE:

Todays version doesn;t look greatly different from yesterdays… but it’s loaded with lots of minor-seeming yet important refinements.

Cockpits:

Note that the cockpits are being modeled so that they *could* be cast in clear resin or vac-formed. No cockpit details are planned at this time, but the option is left open for the dedicated scratchbuilder.

Cockpit in relation to the main body. Holes were punched into the main body to accomodate the cockpits. Again no internal details are planned, but it’s left open for the future.

The parts breakdown for the main fuselage.

————

UPDATE: took the weekend off from this; my eyes were starting to cross. Here’s the latest iteration… note the “wingtip” weapons turrets/mounts/whatever.

———–

UPDATE: Now with all the parts. Of course, some of the parts are represented solely by little gray blocks, but it gives an impression of how complexicated this model will be.

———–

UPDATE: Pecking away at the last bits…

—————-

UPDATE: Here, essentially, are all the parts.

The Saturn V from 2002

projects, rockets, spacecraft 5 Responses »

Jul 112010

Before the Constellation program began, NASA had looked at the requirement sof a manned Mars program. In 2007 NASA-Johnson released an “Exploration Blueprint Data Book” documenting the results of a 90-day study conducted from September to November 2002.

The report was fairly substantial, insofar as 600 pages of Powerpoint presentations can be considered “substantial.” A fair portion of it dealt with launch vehicles that could support the effort. Along with the usual Shuttle-derived designs, there was also a Saturn V-derived concept. Apart from being a two-stage vehicle with RP-1 fuel for the first stage and hydrogen for the second, it actually had little in common with the Saturn V. Propulsion for Stage 1 was provided by eight Russian RD-180 rocket engines (the type used on the Atlas V), and Stage 2 was powered either by SSME’s modified for air start or J-2S’s. Payload delivered to a 30 by 150 nautical mile orbit (clearly circularization was required) was a substantial 102 metric tons.

The design seems to have been fairly rudimentary.

Here’s the DWG file of the layout drawing, if’n you’re into that sort of thing…

saturn-v-class.dwg

Close, California. But Not Quite Right.

blather, politics, weapons 8 Responses »

Jul 112010

Openly bearing arms, beachgoers cite their rights

Sounds surprisingly progressive (*real* “progessive,” not fascist “Progressive”) for California. But here’s where it goes south:

California allows people to openly carry guns in many areas as long as they are unloaded, though they can keep ammunition with them.

This is like the unconstitutional gun control laws of such repressive regimes as Chicago and Washington, D.C. where guns must be kept in a non-operational condition. A gun without ammunition is more dangerous to the gun owner than to the criminals. Behold the photo accompanying the article:

Firefighter Scott Brownlie wears an unloaded Colt M-4 Carbine slung across his back on a Hermosa Beach street.

Two things:

1: Not a particularly convenient form of carry. The gun is out of his way, it’s true, but getting to it would be problematic. Worse, it is right out in the open where he can’t see it, but where some criminal can gain easy access to it.

2: Damned thing is unloaded. It is at best a club, and not a very good one.

I am a holder of a Utah concealed carry permit, and often do go out and about with a small pistol (.45 caliber) somewhere on my person. It’s my opinion that as things currently stand, concealed carry makes more sense. If you are carrying concealed, there’s no visual difference between you and everyone else in the joint. But if you are carrying openly, criminals see (and target) you first. And if you are doing something as unwise as carrying openly but unloaded, you’re just asking for a box of trouble.

Now, if society could somehow be made to grow the hell up such that *most* people were packing heat at any one time, then carrying openly would make a bunch of sense, because there’d be a large proportion of people at any particular time and place carrying openly… and thus there wouldn’t be someone standing out as a target. Sadly, that’s not the society we have. As borne out by some of the quotes in the article (and by many of the commenters), there are a vast number of people in society who have chosen to live in abject error of inanimate objects.

The Best Thing You’ll See All Day

awesomeness, blather, rockets, spacecraft 15 Responses »

Jul 112010

Hands down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7sdHzY3xFA&

Four views of a recent Armadillo Aerospace test “hop” of their VTOVL rocket vehicle.

It’s things like this that keep that last tiny little spark of hope alive in me. If we can somehow manage to survive the Obamaconomocalypse, so that rich folk can continue to invest in space travel, then we jsut might make it as a civilization, even with a wholly neutered NASA.

The Creativity Crisis

AARRRGH, blather, news 20 Responses »

Jul 102010

American public school edumacationizing strikes again: for the first time, American “creativity scores” are in decline.

Gah.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

My suggestion: if we *have* to have public schools (a massivley debatable point), then break out of the “rote” method of teaching. Strip off the extraneous bullcrap; readin’ wrtin’, ‘rythmatic, history, science, art. Anything beyond that – the wonders of multiculturalism, athletics, PC-bullcrap, self-esteem building, etc., should be done away with. And for art and science, teach not by pounding lectures into their little heads, or by piling vast amounts of homework on ’em, but by giving them creative assignments, singly and in groups. Most people learn best by doing. Science should be taught by *doing.*

Sigh.

But I suppose that would irritate the DOE and the teachers unions somehow. Probably best to home school the little monsters.

Nuclear Lightbulb, Part 1

awesomeness, drawings, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft 3 Responses »

Jul 102010

The NERVA nuclear rocket used a sorta-conventional nuclear reactor as its basis. As the reactor was brought up to power, the solid fuel elements would heat up; hydrogen would be sent through coolant channels. The hydrogen would of course heat up, cooling the reactor. When operated properly, the temperature in the reactor would reach a steady state; a temperature limited by the structural capabilities of the solid reactor materials.

The hotter the reactor, the hotter the hydrogen, and the better the rocket performance. However, the hotter it gets, the softer the reactor structural elements get; at some point it fails structurally, and perhaps even melts. So the temperature must be limited. And the temperature limits limit performance. NERVA was quite cool compared to the combustion temperature of a conventional hydrogen/oxygen rocket engine. However, the extremely low molecular weight of the pure hydrogen exhaust compared to the H2O exhaust of the chemical rocket makes up for that, providing about twice the specific impulse.

In order to greatly improve specific impulse, the temperature of the hydrogen must be increased; and to do that the temperature of the reactor must be increased. It quickly becomes impossible to have a solid-core reactor, and one must accept that the uranium will not be a solid. So rocket designers of the early 1960’s came up with the liquid-core nuclear rocket, with molten uranium; and then the gas-core rocket where the uranium is so hot it has actually vaporized. But the problem was containing the uranium. Typically centrifugal force (by spinning the rocket around its central axis) was employed; the uranium liquid or gas would, hopefully, be stuck to the outer wall of the rocket reaction chamber, while lighter hydrogen would migrate to the core, and then out the nozzle. The thickness of the uranium liquid or gas would be less than the distance from the chamber wall inwards to the nozzle, so the hope was that ther uranium wouldn’t be able to flow out the nozzle. A simple idea made extremely difficult in actual practice… massive, extremely hot nuclear reactors being spun at high rate around their central axis, with little to no vibration while being injected with liquid hydrogen? Not exactly the description of a straightforward engineering problem. With all the effort involved, uranium was still expected to leak out the nozzle, making the propulsion system both filthy (a minor concern in deep space) and wasteful of uranium (a serious concern).

Another solution was devised in the mid 1960’s that in principle would combine the best of both worlds… uranium brought up to plasma temperatures, and uranium contained physically so that it could not escape. This concept was known as the Nuclear Light Bulb.

TO BE CONTINUED…

HIV 91% Cured

news, science 9 Responses »

Jul 082010

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of AIDS… so the damned activists will finally SHUT THE HELL UP about it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703609004575355072271264394.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

U.S. government scientists have discovered three powerful antibodies, the strongest of which neutralizes 91% of HIV strains, more than any AIDS antibody yet discovered.

AIDS has to have been the oddest disease, politically, since the Black Death. Here’s a disease that’s astonishingly difficult to transmit and could have been contained nearly thirty years ago had public officials been as willing to quarantine AIDS-infectees as they would have been for, say, leprosy or zombie-plague infectees. Given that the vast majority of those infected with HIV/AIDS chose, with full knowledge, to engage in behaviors they knew put them at risk, the public response to the disease has been incomprehensible. Just try imagining instead of an “AIDS Quilt” or some such, there was a “cirrhosis of the liver quilt” for long-term alcoholics or a “meth-mouth quilt.”

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