Gandalf visits Poland.
[youtube cVy7YeeqGZQ]
Dec 162013
Dec 162013
[youtube aBRpZMqifn0]
This rat stuck on an escalator in a San Francisco BART station is a perfect microcosm of daily life…
Dec 162013
[youtube 8JNal7S6Ng8]
Dec 152013
I just saw this today. HOLY CRAP. Might this, at very long last, finally be the pro-space exploration movie we’ve been waiting for? There’s not a whole lot available about the plot (see IMDB), but at the very least this teaser has *exactly* the right message.
Dec 142013
Here is the Brilliant Pebbles anti-missile vehicle just after cocoon (“life jacket” here) separation. The kill vehicle is shown as a multi-stage vehicle with four drop-tanks; this capability usually isn’t shown. However, it would certainly allow for blisteringly fast interception speeds.
Dec 142013
So, there was yet another school shooting Friday, this time in Arapahoe, Colorado. The only person killed this time was the shooter himself (one 18-year-old Karl Halverson Pierson… it seems criminal nuts always have to have all three names mentioned), though two students were injured. And it turns out that this time, the shooter *was* heavily opinionated on matters of politics.
We’ve become accustomed in the past several years to understand that whenever someone does somethign horrifying, the chattering classes will leap to blaming Republicans, Tea Partiers, Conservatives, right wingers, Glenn Beck listeners, Sarah Palin fans. It’s their go-to position. And in virtually every case, it turns out that the nut is either apolitical, or leans left. Well, how about in this case? Where did Pierson stand? Fortunately, some research has already been done to find out just what kind of horrific Tea Party Wingnut he was:
Arapahoe High gunman held strong political beliefs, classmates said
In one Facebook post, Pierson attacks the philosophies of economist Adam Smith, who through his invisible-hand theory pushed the notion that the free market was self-regulating. In another post, he describes himself as “Keynesian.”
“I was wondering to all the neoclassicals and neoliberals, why isn’t the market correcting itself?” he wrote. “If the invisible hand is so strong, shouldn’t it be able to overpower regulations?”
Pierson also appears to mock Republicans on another Facebook post, writing “you republicans are so cute” and posting an image that reads: “The Republican Party: Health Care: Let ’em Die, Climate Change: Let ’em Die, Gun Violence: Let ’em Die, Women’s Rights: Let ’em Die, More War: Let ’em Die. Is this really the side you want to be on?”
Interestingly, the Denver Post article has been edited from its original version. Original, a classmate is quoted as describing the nut as a “very opinionated Socialist,” and now it simply says that he was “very opinionated.” Odd, that.
Dec 142013
Something else to worry about:
Could the universe collapse TODAY? Physicists claim that risk is ‘more likely than ever and may have already started’
In short:
- Collapse could be down to a subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson
- Higgs boson is evidence for an energy field that pervades the universe
- Shift in field will cause particles in it to become billions of times heavier
- The new weight will squeeze all material into a small, super-hot and heavy ball, and the universe as we know it will cease to exist
(I believe this small super-heavy ball of which they speak would be otherwise known as a black hole.)
This doomsday scenario seems similar to a Vacuum Metastabilty Event. Both would result from an unlikely series of random natural or artificial events and both would result in a “bubble” in which the laws of physics would be radically altered in a way that would preclude the continuation or life and even matter. These bubbles would expand outward at the speed of light, so you’ve never know it was coming even if it started in the Andromeda Galaxy.
In this case, the Higgs field would, somehow, undergo a phase transition, with the result being that the force of gravity, or at least the mass of things, would get billions of times stronger. In this case, the Earth would probably collapse into a black hole. The moon, as well. But they wouldn’t just continue to orbit; with mass increasing by a billion times, orbital velocity would be far too low, so the Earth and moon would fly into each other. Of course, they’d also get sucked into the sun at the same time, since it’s billions of times more massive (and also a black hole). The galaxy itself, now composed of little more than black holes, degenerate matter and a few bits of dust and free gas, would collapse, everything seemingly just racing straight towards the core.
Well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting my taxes in on time.
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And in wholly unrelated We’re All Gonna Die News, here’s how London will kill us all by spreading a pandemic.
[youtube K7jdwAdsHFI]
Dec 142013
Dec 142013
The NASA “Morpheus” lander, to be a bit more specific.
[youtube RlbTx4fo5Tw]
This is an evolved version of prior Armadillo Aerospace lander work, and is the second Morpheus lander to fly. The first one flew in August 2012… and burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp.
Dec 142013