The “lander” of the Messiah. A tiny part of the whole vehicle, but much of the detail goes here.
Oct 272014
Oct 272014
At least according to your cat. An interesting writeup of feline psychology and how to get along with cats:
Why Your Cat Thinks You’re a Huge, Unpredictable Ape
The article makes the point that *both* negative and positive feedback are important in behavior-training a cat. But it makes the *important* point that *you* should be the source of positive feedback, while negative feedback should come from the environment itself.
“How the hell is your cat supposed to know that you’re yelling at him because you want him to stop scratching the couch?” Buffington says. Without the cognitive ability to connect your outburst to their scratching, cats see only chaotic aggression. “To the cat, you’re this crazy primate who is attacking him for no reason,” he says.
Instead of discouraging the act, you become an object of fear.
Basically, cats have Aspergers. Because felines are naturally loners, they did not evolve the need or ability to read very many social cues (unlike dogs which have been pack animals for millions of years, and have been integrated into Team Humanity for probably longer than 15,000 years). And if they don’t have much use for *feline* social cues, what are the chances hey are going to be able to figure *you* out?
As with humans with Aspergers, cats are often thought of by the ignorant as having no empathy, or that they don’t care about their humans. This, as anyone who has put in the effort can attest, is untrue. The fact that they don’t understand your social cues doesn’t mean that they don’t care about you; they simply don’t *understand* you. Their thought process is alien from yours, but it can be understood in broad strokes.
Oct 272014
Oct 262014
A year ago, “Solid Concepts,” a rapid prototyping firm, revealed that they had 3D printed a fully-functional .45 caliber 1911 pistol. They have now unveiled a 10mm 1911, with a whole lot more artistry. A year ago I understood that they weren’t planning on putting their version of the 1911 into production, but a month later they made 100 and put a price tag of $11,900 on each of them.
The new pistol is called “Reason,” is seriously arted-up and has the preamble to the Declaration of Independence “printed” onto the front of the grip. It has a rail on the underside for a laser or light, and the barrel appears to be threaded for a suppressor. It looks fairly snazzy, but I’m not sure about the ergonomics of that trigger…
Solid Concepts 3D Prints Another Metal Gun, ‘Reason’, a 10mm Auto 1911
Oct 262014
Seems I was right in my guess three months back that what’s featured in the “Interstellar” trailers was a black hole with an accretion disk. It also seems that the film makers went to rather more than the usual level of effort to depict it. I’ve always been rather disappointed with how black holes are portrayed; even the recent “Cosmos” series got it rather obviously wrong: a black hole isn’t just a big black sphere, it’s a gravitational lens which distorts space behind, before and around it.
Click the link to see the fairly interesting video on the physics behind “Interstellars” black hole depiction.
Exclusive: The Science of Interstellar – WIRED
Oct 262014
Or maybe it was meth.
So, the Very Worst Southern Stereotype, a kind of character who, if he appeared in a movie or TV show would be decried as an unrealistic and unreasonable redneck caricature, goes the the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. There, he spotted a guy waiting in line who had the temerity to wear a pink shirt, which Mr. Stereotype decided meant that he was a homosexual. Mr. Stereotype then proceeded to berate Pink Shirt Guy… and eventually struck and kicked him. The satisfying part of the whole thing is that Mr. Stereotype was *promptly* taken down by a number of the surrounding civilians… including Mr. Cowboy Hat Guy, and, as it turns out, *another* guy wearing a pink shirt (who appears to have suffered an ankle injury in the process). The commentary at the end of the video is refreshingly wise for a YouTube video taken mere moments after the event.
After he gets taken down, Mr. Stereotype gets dealt with by a couple of quite professional *black* police officers… who let Mr. Stereotype yammer on and on and dig his legal hole deeper and deeper.
[youtube XxWimFepdn4]
Oct 252014
“Sleepy Hollow” is one of those rare TV shows that starts off, before you’ve watched it, as “well, that’s kind of a dumb idea, I bet it’ll be horrible” but turns out to be modestly fantastic. Helping it attain this is John Noble, he of Denethor and Walter Bishop fame, who plays… well, it’s kinda hard to say.
Fox has added to the awesomeness with a commercial featuring Noble’s character of Henry Parrish in his lawyer-form. I’ll let you judge whether or not you’d really want this guy on your side…
[youtube ba8dtjlj-M0]
Oct 252014
Based on some feedback, I have re-uploaded both USBP01 and USBP02 to further tweak the formatting and the images. It’ll probably be a few hours before the updates are available. But once available, I’d be interested in hearing from prior purchasers whether or not you can successfully download the new versions without having to re-pay for them (I’d hope so, but I don’t know for sure). And of course, any comments regarding how they look on what device.
I expect that there’ll be no Perfect Solution for every possible device, but I’m sure there’s a Best possible. Hopefully these are just about there…
Oct 242014
Turns out that the pinhead up in Ottawa used a Winchester Model 1894 lever action 30-30. Unsurprisingly, a whole lot of the press had a hard time understanding just what that is.
Oct 242014
I have – I *think* – just corrected an error in the listing that should open sales up worldwide. If some of all y’all furriners would like to take a look and see if it’s still unavailable, that’d be helpful. Note, though, that USBP#02 has been uploaded and is going through review… and – again I *think* – should be far better in terms of image resolution. If I get confirmation from a customer or three that #2 is better than #1, I will re-upload #1. I don’t know if previous purchasers can download the new, better version or not…
#2 took freakin’ *forever* to get properly formatted. I couldn’t find a way to get the “Caliber” converter on my computer to *not* reduce the image resolution, so I had to use the Amazon system directly, which meant uploading the thing and waiting for it to process, then looking through the annoyingly slow previewer for the innumerable and mysterious formatting issues. After around 20 cycles of this, I *think* I’ve got it hammered into shape with full-rez images. So while this is formatted and laid out differently from the standard PDF version, the image quality should be as good.
Unless something screwy happens (and, gosh, when has *that* ever happened), USBP#2 should be available on Amazon in the next some hours. I have high hopes of being asleep at the time. So if you’d like to be the first kid on your block with a copy, or want to help out be getting a copy early and providing feedback (if so, thanks), just search for “US Bomber Projects” on Amazon.
My plan at this time is to keep publications at Amazon about five or six issues behind those on my website.