At least I wasn’t alone

 AARRRGH, blather  3 Responses »
Jan 072014
 

Today was the first day since before Christmas when I felt up to traveling further than the little grocery store in Tremonton: a big-time expedition to WalMart in Brigham City to load up on groceries. Even so, a simple task that wore me out. On the way out I had to gas up the car; one of my kinda-sorta neighbors works at the gas station. I asked her if her house has managed to avoid the flu… she laughed and replied that they’ve been fighting several cases of pneumonia there.

It sucks to be sick; it sucks slightly less when you find that nature hasn’t been directing its wrath specifically at *you* but at the human species in general, and you’re just one more faceless casualty.

 Posted by at 1:42 pm

More F-111B art

 aircraft, art, history, projects  2 Responses »
Jan 072014
 

Another (probably Grumman) painting depicting the abortive F-111B in service. The paint scheme shown here is different from what’s usually depicted, with an overall dark gray upper and lighter gray lower.

2013-12-22 grumman art 3-a

 Posted by at 12:48 pm

Titan Was Right

 Crazy, dumbassery, politics  2 Responses »
Jan 072014
 

Six months ago, Maurice Taylor Jr., the American CEO of Titan International, responded to a request for his company to buy a failing Goodyear tire factory in France with: “How stupid do you think we are?”

More evidence has come to light that Taylor was right to avoid this place like the plague: the workers, facing layoffs because they and their factory just aren’t very good, decided to kidnap several of the managers and hold them for ransom:

French Workers Hold Goodyear Managers Over Jobs

 

 Posted by at 7:41 am

Not quite healed

 AARRRGH, blather  4 Responses »
Jan 072014
 

I thought I was doing pretty well today. Then I went and took a litterbox outside to dump it. A job of no more than a few minutes, and I spent the next hour or so with my lungs protesting loudly.

Feh.

 Posted by at 1:03 am

F-111B

 aircraft, art, history  8 Responses »
Jan 052014
 

A piece of artwork – from a collection of Grumman art – depicting the failed US Navy F-111B. The F-111B was primarily a General Dynamics design, but Grumman was an important contractor, so this may be Grumman art.

2013-12-22 grumman art 3-c

 Posted by at 9:21 pm

Does Earth have an invisible ring system?

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., reshaping the world, science  5 Responses »
Jan 052014
 

Few things would be as visually spectacular as a ring system about an Earth-like world. And there may be evidence that Earth has just such a ring system… just one composed of dark matter, not regular matter:

GPS satellites suggest Earth is heavy with dark matter

Much more of the universe is composed of dark matter than regular matter. But since dark matter does not interact  with the electromagnetic force, both regular matter and photons go right through it likes it’s not there. However, dark and regular matter *do* interact gravitationally. And it *seems* that the Earth may have picked up a disk of dark matter 191 km thick and 70,000 km in diameter. The data seems very preliminary, and I bet further analysis may well tear the conclusions to shreds, but it’s a neat idea.

 Posted by at 2:10 pm

Shoot for the moon

 art, awesomeness, blather, history, Hmm..., spacecraft, youtube  9 Responses »
Jan 052014
 

Once again an ad agency hearkens back to Apollo to try to sell us stuff, in this case the Cadillac CTS. While scientifically inaccurate in it’s imagery, the very last scene *is* very, very pretty.

[youtube jXsWeGUJP9M]

How many other government programs – and, better, government programs from more than *40* years ago – can be expected to serve as a source of inspiration? I wonder if a business case could be made that a modern American return-to-the-moon can be funded by and run for American ad agencies, in order to provide fodder for the next couple generations of sellin’ stuff? Whatever it takes, man…

 Posted by at 1:43 am

Drafting through the coughing

 blather, drawings, US Bomber Projects  3 Responses »
Jan 052014
 

The Existential Horror phase of the illness now seems to be a day or two over, and has been downgraded to Seriously Annoying. For several days the goal was to simply stay alive (at least, that’s how it felt), with everything else a distant second. Things like “creativity” were basically wiped out… whether I wanted to be creative or not was irrelevant, as I simply didn’t have any creativity or any energy. Past two days I’ve started to regain some initiative. Still far below baseline, but I’ve at least got *something* up and running. So here are preliminary layouts for USBP #’s 6 and 7.

booklet 7-Model booklet 6-Model

 Posted by at 1:19 am
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