Two pages from a B-58 pilots manual stitched together into a single illustration showing the various bits and pieces.
Jul 192014
Jul 182014
So, what does a guy look like who’ll sexually abuse a boy under the age of twelve? Well, if the father happens to walk in on the molestation… kinda like this:
Bad as this scumbag feels now… wait till the general prison population gets a hold of him. Dregs of humanity they may be, they tend to take a dim view of child abusers.
Jul 182014
UK weather: Heatwave temperatures to top 32 degrees amid warnings that hundreds could die
Translating Celsius into real temperatures, 32 degrees C = 89.6 degrees F.
Ooooh. Scary, scary. Nearly 90 degrees.
Meanwhile in Utah…
Jul 182014
Saw this on eBay a while ago:
Details are lacking. Probably dates from the late 70’s or 80’s. it appears to be a construction base for a small Solar Power Satellite (being built at upper right).
Jul 182014
A while back I took a stab at printing cyanotype blueprints on canvas (the kind used by artists for painting on). After a rough start, I managed to get the process to work pretty well. It’s more complex and substantially more expensive than cyanotype printing on vellum paper, so I don’t know if I’ll make canvas blueprints available for regular sale like the paper versions. Still, I’ve put the first three successes on ebay if anyone is interested:
“Little Boy” atom bomb blueprint on canvas
“Fat Man” atom bomb blueprint on canvas
Dual Saturn V blueprint on canvas
Jul 182014
Juuuuust a bit of a different tone.
Yesterday:
[youtube Z7d3zg_LZNo]
Back in the day:
[youtube 9VA4W1wDMAk]
Thirty years ago, it was a “massacre” and a “crime against humanity” that “must never be forgotten,” “violating every concept of human rights.” Yesterday, “it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy.” And then he proceeds to blow off allies (“our first priority” was to “determine if there were American citizens on board”), tell jokes and fundraise.
Jul 182014
It seems The End is to come.
That blog and especially the comments section is a vast cornucopia of crazy. It’s got your “We’re all going to die by 2030 because global warming will cause the oceans to rise by 50 meters” and witchy bullcrap coupled with a truly astonishing level of hatred for an entire half of the human species. If the hate expressed here – which is of the we-need-to-exterminate-them-from-the-face-of-the-Earth kind – was aimed at a religious or ethnic group, you can bet your keister that the SPLC and the FBI would be all over ’em.
Jul 172014
Buttons just can’t take it anymore:
PS: he hasn’t had one of those unwakable nightmares since I posted about it (at least not that I’ve seen). So, huzzah.
Jul 172014
Rosetta Spacecraft Approaching Twofold Comet
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is being approached by the ESA’s Rosetta probe, which is now close enough (14,000 km) to get some images. Turns out it seems to be composed of two distinct chunks. The chunks might be held together mechanically, or just via gravity. The rotation period is about 12 hours.
Once again, the universe as revealed by science is a freakier place than previously imagined. Giant space duckies…
Jul 172014
Out soon is the movie “Lucy.” It looks massively entertaining (as it should be, being written and directed by Luc Besson, who gave us “The Fifth Element” and “From Paris With Love” and “Taken”), but there’s an aspect to it that has bugged me since I first saw a trailer for it, months ago. Namely, the tagline:
“The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.”
The problem is… humans *already* use 100% of their brain capacity. The 10% thing is a myth going on a century old, described in some detail here:
Humans Already Use Way, Way More Than 10 Percent of Their Brains
The 10% myth is basically an urban legend with no basis in fact whatsoever, but it’s an urban legend that just freakin’ refuses to die.
That said: the human brain, though it’s being used at much more than 10%, could of course be made to run better. Whether via cybernetics, drugs or perhaps some genetic rewiring, it (like any naturally evolved system) can be greatly improved upon while still retaining its basic nature. In “Lucy,” as the main character gains more and more control she gains magical superpowers… telekinesis and apparently control over time, for starters. These are of course silly. Just because your brain has been boosted doesn’t mean you’ll be able to change the laws of physics. But what you might be able to do:
1) Think (and read, and do math, and process information) faster
2) Think *deeper* (run complex simulations in your head quickly and accurately)
3) Think more creatively
Put those together, and you’ll really have something. #3 is the one that popular culture seems to have the greatest fixation on, as if pure creativity is in and of itself this wonderful thing. But without #1 and #2, creativity is just gibberish. Without the ability to collate data *and* process the validity of an idea in the context of the available data, coming up with new ideas turns into coming up with uncontrolled nonsense. “What if purple monkey dishwasher?”
I suspect that within a generation or two there will be drugs and/or gene therapies that will boost functional IQs. Turn an average person into a genius; make a genius into a super-genius. This will, of course, annoy the hell out of a whole lot of people. *Any* drug is expensive when it first comes on the market. So the Brain boost is going to cost (handwave) ten grand a pop at first. Who could afford that? Well… rich people. Taking rich folk – who, in many cases, already have a tendency to be smarter – and making them thirty IQ points higher up will only make them richer still. This will not go over well.
What these drugs won’t do is allow you to use more of your brain. they’ll allow you to use the same amount of your brain… but more efficiently and/or powerfully. And they won’t let you teleport.