Tash ma Tash

 awesomeness, humor, religion  4 Responses »
Aug 182010
 

Who knew that Saudi televisoon could be awesome??

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/7950200/Role-reversal-Saudi-comedy-provokes-anger-among-male-population.html

The comedy was an episode in Saudi Arabia’s most celebrated satirical series, Tash Ma Tash or No Big Deal, a take-off of social prejudices shown annually during the holy month of Ramadan.

The central character takes four husbands, explaining herself using the conventional arguments Saudi men use to exercise their legal and religious privilege of marrying four times.

But of course, and you saw it coming…

 There are regular calls to ban Tash Ma Tash…

 Posted by at 5:20 pm

Truth In Advertising

 awesomeness, blather, religion  4 Responses »
Aug 182010
 

I’m a fan of the idea of the government having minimal interference with commerce. Largely they should be restricted to enforcing contracts… and enforcing truth in advertising (this would encompass product safety; tennis shoes should not explode unless they are advertised as “explodey fireball napalm sneakers”).

And often enough, misleading advertising  gets taken to task by private industry, before the government could even come into play. For example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7950087/Amulet-advert-banned-over-claim-of-divine-protection.html

An advert for an amulet which promised ‘divine protection’ has been banned by advertising bosses because the firm behind it could not prove that angels will protect those who wear it.

Damned skippy! If you offer a product that claims to provide some feature or service, you should stand ready to prove that it actually does provide that feature or service. Whether it’s making a headache go away, getting you drunk, getting 35 MPG or invoking the protection of angels, gods, demons or tax professionals… you should be able to back that up.

Now, to apply this to politicians and televangelists…

 Posted by at 5:17 pm

Yay.

 blather  6 Responses »
Aug 182010
 

Picked up the external hard drive from the data recovery people. Appears to have been a “perfect” recovery, all data. The problem with the original data was with the firmware (the hardwired-in software the runs the drive itself), probably caused by electrical power problems. The drive with the recovered data is currently hooked up to the laptop, which is hooked up to *another* new backup drive. Data is slowly copying over. Looks like it’ll be a job of many hours.

 Posted by at 4:39 pm

More Journo-Fail

 AARRRGH, dumbassery, news  4 Responses »
Aug 172010
 

The Most Amazing News Story Of The Day:

Ex-NASA worker admits stealing space suit

Wow! Stealing a space suit? That’s pretty hard core! NASA space suits cost something like ten million dollars, and are large, heavy items. How did he swipe it? The helmet alone would be difficult to steal… it’s not like he could have put it in his lunchbox. And what was he planning on doing with it? Putting it on eBay? Perhaps the article will have details of this amazing theft…

The flight suit bearing the name patch Sally Ride for the first U.S. woman astronaut in space is valued at more than $1,000.

Ummm… ah. A… flight suit.

Errrr… a flight suit looks like this:

flightsuit.jpg

While a space suit looks like this:

spacesuit.jpg

Considering that the source of the article is the Miami Herald, you’d think that maybe they’d have someone on staff who knew a little something or other about that big organization down the road with all the rockets and junk.

 Posted by at 9:28 pm

Juggalos vs. Tila Tequila

 dumbassery, humor  3 Responses »
Aug 172010
 

If the title of this post makes No Sense Whatsoever, consider yourself fortunate.

When one contemplates the concept of “clash of cultures,” it’s typically something like liberal vs. conservative, Christian vs. Muslim, East vs. West, Communism vs. Capitalism, socialism vs. freedom, that sort of high-minded thing. But sometimes, both cultures engaged in a conflict are really, really lowbrow. And you just don’t know if you should root for one side or the other, or if you should hope they wipe each other out, if if you should just walk away and shake your head sadly, hoping that a new episode of “Futurama” or “Eureka” is on tonight. Take, for example, the recent example of Tila Tequila making the insanely odd choice of “performing” before a gathering of Juggalos:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/when-juggalos-attack-a-firsthand-account-of-the-ti,44221/

Sometimes people just don’t think things through in advance.

 Posted by at 4:35 pm

Cat cataracts

 AARRRGH, cats  7 Responses »
Aug 172010
 

Read no further if you’re not in the mood for depression.

Took Koshka to the vet today: cataracts developing in both eyes. Vet estimated they were at 40% (I assume that means 40% opacity); when they get to 50% or 60%, that’s when she’ll start becoming effectively blind.

Koshka is at least 10 years old (she was an adult when I adopted her 10 years ago… the shelter was unsure exactly how old, but estimated her at a year or less, IIRC). So as far as cats go, she’s starting to get up there in years, and cataracts are not exactly unexpected. But it’s still not something you want to hear.

 Posted by at 1:29 am

Multipurpose Nanomissile

 awesomeness, news, projects, rockets, spacecraft, weapons  10 Responses »
Aug 152010
 

Now under development for the Army is a modular suborbital/orbital launch vehicle known as MNMS (Multipurpose Nano Missile System). In its basic form, it will be composed of 24-inch diameter cylindrical rockets using pressure fed ethane/nitrous oxide engines. Stack two of these stages together, and a third, smaller stage and cluster six more stages around the first, and you can put 10 kilograms into orbit. At a vehicle cost of $1,000,000 it’s about the cheapest way to put something into orbit… but it works out to a hundred grand a kilo, ten times more expensive per kilo than the Space Shuttle. It can also use surplus ATACMS solid rocket boosters and surplus MLRS rockets.

mnms2.jpg

mnms4.jpg

mnms3.jpg

A video of the concept can be seen here.

It can be used to lob small satellites into orbit, conventional munitions, experimental payladds, and almost certainly things like tactical hypersonic boost-glide recon bots.

mnms1.jpg

 Posted by at 11:56 pm
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