Art at various resolutions: Back In The Day

 aircraft, awesomeness, blather, drawings, projects, spacecraft  3 Responses »
Nov 072011
 

These days, if you need artwork for your technical presentation, chances are good that you can not only size the artwork to fit your needs but also adjust the level of detail. A simple control of “layers” will let you select what to show.

But before computers, if you wanted two similar drawings but with different levels of detail, you had to manually draw the things.  As an example. behold these drawings of an early Lockheed Space Shuttle concept, derived from the STAR Clipper concept. All three of them wound up in the STAR Clipper article I’m working on for issue V3N2 of APR. Coming from three separate sources, they each wormed their way into the article until I recognized that they were all essentially the same thing, and boiled ’em down to the last, and best, of the drawings.

 Posted by at 10:06 pm

Introducing Barack Obama

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., history, I'm from the government, news, Obamazombies, politics  1 Response »
Nov 072011
 

A 2004 “Obama for Senate” propaganda video lays out his philosophies. The highlight, IMO:

“We all have a set of mutual obligations towards each other — we are our brother’s keeper, we are our sister’s keeper — and that those mutual obligations have to express themselves through government policies”

[youtube b91nsPDQFUk]

Faith-based politics.

 Posted by at 11:17 am

Another “Occupy” success story

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, politics  No Responses »
Nov 072011
 

The fleabaggers can’t seem to pull together too many coherent messages, except for “corporations are bad, m’kay.” While they may have their sights set on taking down corporate giants like banks and oil companies and such, they have to start somewhere.

Oakland business owners fear they won’t recover

Short form: restaurants near the Occupy Oakland crowd have not only seen business collapse, they’ve also seen vandalism, broken windows, graffiti, fires. Some of these restaurants are close to simply packing it in.

If I was of a conspiratorial mindset, I’d consider the possibility that this was intentional: use the fleabaggers to drive out business and collapse property values, then swoop in and pick up properties at fire-sale prices.

Say, what’s George Soros been up to these days?

 Posted by at 11:06 am

Lockheed Shuttle Concept, 1970

 aircraft, drawings, projects, rockets, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Nov 052011
 

One of the more unusual Shuttle designs I’ve come across is this Lockheed design from 1970. Included as part of a trade study against the “STAR Clipper,” this design featured an orbiter that was configured very much like a subsonic aircraft. Straight wings, a very conventional tail and a rather un-hypersonic fuselage were married to a podded bank of 11 rocket engines and two very large external propellant tanks. As with the STAR Clipper, “configuration 1-150” used droppable propellant tanks for 1.5 stage-to-orbit performance. Payload was 22,408 pounds.

 Posted by at 8:58 pm

Occupy Logan

 blather, humor, politics  4 Responses »
Nov 052011
 

One of the upsides to the Occupy wall street movement has been to point out how things differ across the country. While the likes of Oakland or NYC may have mass infestations of wannabe communists… a week ago, this was the best they could pull together in Logan, Utah:

And Logan is a “university town.” Heh.

 Posted by at 8:34 am

North American Aviation FX 2

 aircraft, projects  2 Responses »
Nov 042011
 

Another artist impression of the North American Aviation FX design, the NA-335. This time in glorious ExtraColor.

If you want to read more on the NA-335 or see a three-view, I can’t recommend highly enough Tony Buttler’s “American Secret Projects: Fighters & Interceptors 1945-1978.”

 Posted by at 6:58 am

French Newspaper Firebombed

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, news, religion  2 Responses »
Nov 042011
 

Color me stunned:

French satirical newspaper firebombed after prophet Mohammed announcement

The offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo have been destroyed by a petrol bomb, a day after it named the Prophet Mohammed as its “editor-in-chief” for this week’s issue.

If the criminals involved aren’t hunted down and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, the repercussions could be dire.

And by the way… the same mindset that leads to the conclusion that torching a newspaper for making fun of an ancient pedophile is a good thing also leads to this sort of thing:

Man beheaded in Saudi Arabia for being ‘a sorcerer’

 Posted by at 6:45 am

A joke’s not funny if you have to explain it…

 blather, humor, news  6 Responses »
Nov 032011
 

… and art’s not art if it is easily mistaken for trash.

$1.1M German museum piece falls victim to cleaning lady

I bust my hump trying to properly craft rare and exotic display models of unusual craft, and photographically represent some truly awesome views. And some dork gets a million bucks for making something that apparently looks like a dried up water puddle.

Bah.

 Posted by at 2:44 pm
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