Seems the era of Kodachrome film is over:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100802/ap_on_en_ot/us_kodachrome_s_last_roll
Apparently the last-ever roll of Kodachrome film was produced about a year ago, and given to the photographer who took the well-known National Geographic photo of the Afghan girl with the haunting green eyes. What makes the end of Kodachrome even more final is that there’s only one photo lab that still processes the stuff, and it’s shutting down that operation in December.
From a few nights back. Weird angle due to a limited window of opportunity… shortly after this the moon rose, and I didn’t have time for the Milky Way to pass directly overhead.
Note: yet another satellite.
A Schleiren photo of a supersonic wind tunnel model of the B-70 Valkyrie bomber, with the wingtips set in the “up” position. From the SDAM via Mark Nankivil.
The Arizona law allowing Arizona cops to enforce federal immigration laws has spurred a whole lot of anger among the Reconquista crowd, their Leftist fellow travellers and other useful idiots. It seems to have re-awakened their love of behaving like drunken hippies, a feeling they seem to have lost in recent years. So take a look at the video below and revel in the glory of people who think that flag desecration and using bullhorns to try to drown out other speakers are some sort of cutting-edge briliant political theater.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKAa9W2oOfo
Now, keep in mind, I oppose laws banning flag desecration. So long as you own the flag, you have the right to do with it whatever the hell you want. Nobody, and that means nobody, has the right to not be offended. But just because you have the legal right to do something doesn’t mean that that something is a smart thing to do. If the debate is over criminals who are in this country illegally, and you want people to let them stay… desecrating the US flag is not the politically smart move. It does a dandy job of linking “illegal alien” with “hatred of the United States.”
For those not in the US, imagine if Americans swarmed into your country, started glomming onto your nationalized health care systems and then started burnign your nations flag and demanding in court that y’all should serve more Budweiser and McDonalds and less of that “overcooked animal organs in grease” or whatever your national dish is. I suspect your natural fondness for Americans and our wacky hijinks would fade somewhat.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=34624
Joint USAF/NOAA Report of Solar and Geophysical Activity
SDF Number 213 Issued at 2200Z on 01 Aug 2010
IA. Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity from 31/2100Z
to 01/2100Z: Solar activity increased to low levels. Region 1092
(N13E21) produced a long-duration C3/Sf flare at 01/0826Z. The flare
was associated with a Type IV radio sweep, an 890 sfu Tenflare, and
an Earth-directed full-halo coronal mass ejection (CME). A
disappearing filament (DSF) occurred during 01/0750 – 0811Z,
centered near N37W32 and time coincident with the C3 flare. The DSF
was associated with an Earth-directed partial-halo CME. No new
regions were assigned.
Excuse me while I back up everything on DVD and stock up on TP and ammo.
From Spaceweather.com:
In short, we have just witnessed a complex global eruption involving almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun.
A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by the event is heading directly for Earth: SOHO movie. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when it arrives on or about August 3rd.
Be sure to check out the video.
In unrelated news of Space-Based DOOM, a significant fireball exploded over New Mexico. Also from Spaceweather.com:
Dawn came early to New Mexico on Saturday, July 31st, around 4:54 am local time when a brilliant meteor exploded near Santa Fe. “It turned night into day,” says amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft who recorded the fireball using an all-sky video camera: must-see movie. The movie’s soundtrack is the signal from a 61 MHz forward-scatter meteor radar also operated by Ashcraft. Ghostly echoes from the meteor’s debris continue long after the meteor itself explodes.
Almost there. All that’s left is to build the rocket pods that hang off the side, and do some tweaks here and there… should be just a day or three.
I’d love to print one of these suckers off at 1/35 scale (or, better, 1/18) and use that as a master to fabricate parts in fiberglass and carbon fiber, and the let someone skilled in RC aircraft have a go. Anyone want to fund a project?
Some of the podded weapons are greatly simplified, since they’ll need to be molded and cast. At small scales, that sort of thing requires some compromises.
Again from the SDAM, via Mark Nankivil.
And note the waist gunner. He ain’t taking no crap offa nobody.
The ergonomics seems unfortunate. Any system where the baseline level involves someone half-crouching is asking for trouble.
Abandon all hope…
A few nights ago, the conditions were just right to produce some stunning crepuscular rays:
And when you turned around and faced directly away from the sun, there were some really pronounced anticrepuscular rays. I took some decent photos of ’em, but all attempts to stitch them together into a panorama have failed miserably. If anyone has any suggestions for a good photo stitching program that can mash these together seamlessly, I’d appreciate a heads-up.
