The xkcd “What If” recently had an interesting article: if you went swimming in a coolant tank for spent nuclear fuel, how badly irradiated would you get?
As it turns out, for most of the volume of the tank, you’d get *less* radiation than you would just walking around outside due to perfectly natural background radiation.
The very last line, though, takes the cake.
Because why not.
Before and after photos from the Iranian space launch show distinctly different monkeys.
The Iranians may have lied. Who’d’a thunk it?
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A slightly terrifying shape-changing robot that can clamber over rocks and dig up dirt, intended for mining lunar regolith for water and air such for lunar bases.
A Russian Zenit launcher failed shortly after liftoff from a floating SeaLaunch pad south of Hawaii.
This is Bad News for SeaLaunch, which went into bankruptcy in 2007 after a much more spectacular failure on the pad, and which only recently returned to launching paying customers.
Here’s a silent video. Within 20 second of launch, the first stages engines just… stop.
[youtube YVCWokch2oQ]
That’s kinda “huh.”
Here’s their more entertaining failure from ’07:
[youtube eMG2SBwIcrM]
The November/December 2012 issue of AIAA-Houston “Horizons” is available to download (has been for a while). This issue has two things which I’ve contributed:
“Man On The Moon: The Exploration,” Collier’s magazine, October 25, 1952 : the third in the series of eight articles reprinting the famed “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!” articles from Collier’s magazine. I scanned a vintage copy and cleaned up the images for this.
“Hubble meets Skylab:” a short article on an early Lockheed design study for a Hubble-predecessor which was to have been attached to Skylab. This was when what would become Hubble was planned to use film rather than digital imaging, and would require regular and fairly frequent visits by astronauts to change out the film canisters.
A with the previous issues with the Collier’s reprints, this issue is available in both high and low resolution, from the AIAA-Houston website HERE.
Artwork of the Model 300.
From the Daily Fail:
There is, to be sure, much about this video that is horrifying. The “Clockwork Orange”-esque behavior of the children. The bizarre and violent antics of the mother(s). But the actual moment when she gets enzapulated and falls over like an unbalanced lamp? The word isn’t “horrifying.” “Hilarious,” perhaps. “Overdue.” “Satisfying.” Why the Daily Fail would focus on the tasering as the actual horror, though, is beyond me.
Note: the audio is Not Safe For Work. The video as a whole is Not Safe For Americas Hopes For The Future.
[youtube ZAGARqxG8vE]
We cracked the atom, broke the sound barrier, invented computers that fit in the palm of your hand which have access to the sum total of human knowledge and wisdom… and *this* is what society has produced in its people. Aggressively entitled morons. Gah.
In case you’re curious about the origin of the video itself, it appears that the security guard in question, one Darien Long (master of restraint), wears a high def video camera on his chest. Just as dashcams are useful in Russia, chestcams would seem useful in the US. Sadly.
I’ve been to a lot of shopping malls all over the US. It has been my experience that malls that employ security guards decked out like this tend to *need* security guards like this… and tend to be malls that I never go back to, because they’re nightmares (a basic rule of thumb: guns are to get you out of trouble, not to make you think you should go somewhere where trouble will start). It seems that security guards at this mall are also in desperate need of backup. From the next day, apparently:
[youtube u-olcbwc_wI]
Oy.
Starvin’ Marvin and I are back from a day of tests at the vet. First up was a series of blood tests to check for DOOM; second was X-rays. The blood tests showed that she is slightly out of whack across the board, but nothing major… and nothing that can’t be explained by being a malnourished, dehydrated, stressed-out little frozen kitty. The X-rays showed that she was shot at least twice with a BB gun, with two BB’s still in her. For the time being the vet decided it’s best to just leave ’em there… they don’t seem to be causing any trouble, and it’d just be an unnecessary stress to surgically remove them. She does have a tumor in one of her teats… breast cancer, essentially. Vet thinks it’s most likely benign, and when she’s rested and repaired it can be removed. She has some frostbite on one ear, but no ear mites. She is overall very bony and skinny, except for a fat belly: the reason being that malnutrition makes the intestines/colon hold on to everything to wring out every last calorie of nutrition. In short, she’s as full of crap as a politician. And until that works itself out, she’s staying segregated in a bathroom. That’ll also reduce stress for her… her own little private warm space, without Buttons pestering her.
The vet bill was fairly impressive. But she’s checked over, given a bunch of shots and now has a better future than a few days ago. So for all of you who donated funds to help pay for her tests and meds…. THANK YOU! You helped save her life.
Marvin and I waiting in the exam room. NOTE: this is as close as you’re every going to see to me posting a photo of my junk.
Note that she’s holding on for dear life. Until I trimmed her claws (*right* after this) that was… painful.
Marvin on the exam table. She wanted to explore the room, but jumping off the table was too daunting for her.
Marvin in closeup
Some people suck. Note the two BB’s, one in her back, one in her belly. Neither are deep; just under the skin. But I can’t see how this could be accidental. Someone needs a whoopin’. If you can read Xrays, you can tell that she *really* needs to go…
I generally take a “government-hands-off” approach to internal ethnic strife in other nations. If the Hutus and the Croats want to kill each other in Bosnia-Herzarwanda, sending US troops into the middle just seems like a way to get US troops killed to no good effect. (Mercenaries and volunteers, on the other hand, are perfectly fine.) I’m *really* not a big fan of the US shipping in large numbers of refugees and setting them up all in one spot. One rare occasion, though, the irrational and unthinking discrimination some cultures whip up towards some of their own people demands that the US do something. Take, for example, this problem in North Korea. Clearly, the US needs to rescue these folks and welcome them in.
I think we can find room for these refugees.
Ten years ago today Columbia broke up on entry. I found out while on the long, boring drive from Hollister, CA to Sacramento, listening to a live feed from NASA on the radio, and initially rather confused about what I was hearing. When I finally figured it out… man, that became a *looooooong* drive. And worse: I was heading for Sacramento to go out on a date. It was not a successful one.