In all my running around taking photos of nuclear weapons, one shot I have somehow failed to get is a good, clear dead-on front view of the thing (I took several straight on front view shots of the Fat Man at the atomic weapons museum in Albuquerque… and every last one was badly out of focus). I need this for a single, simple reason: working out just where the bolts holding the nose and tail shells are. You’d think they’d be evenly spaced around the circumference, but they’re not.
If anyone happens to be near one of the numerous display units littering the countryside, or happens to have a clear head-on photo that shows the bolts clearly, I’d be greatly appreciative.
These bolts (scribble-circled):
This here is the closest I have to a head-on clear shot, and it’s not nearly head-on nor clear enough to nail down the angular locations of those bolts:
The first private mission to the moon has signed a launch contract for a SpaceX Falcon 9, to launch in the later half of 2017. Extra entertainingness: the team behind the lunar lander, SpaceIL, is Israeli. Imagine how that’s going to tweak Certain Parties.
It may happen that you pull up The Unwanted Blog and are faced with something unexpected: a security page demanding that you fill in a Captcha thing in order to gain access to the blog. If it says that it’s “Wordfence,” then it’s on the up-and-up. After the blog crash fiasco a while back, I installed some security measures, including the Wordfence plugin. If it suspects that you are a bot, not a human, based on whatever algorithm these things use, it’ll demand that you prove that you are a human. It may also do this if it thinks that your computer is infected with malware (how it does that I’ve no idea). So if you see that… go ahead and fill in the Captcha to gain entry to the blog, and then run a virus scan over your computer because Wordfence might think you’re infected or a bot.
When you absolutely, positively need to stop RIGHT FRIGGEN’ NOW, try the “quick stop” maneuver. Seems effective! Just make sure your rotors are made of good materials…
Neat. Now… prove it, refine it, modify it to work for in-utero tests, preferably as a simple blood or urine test for the mother. Include directions to the nearest abortion clinic (or a dose of Month After pills, or a Baby-B-Gone attachment for a shopvac, whatever) and watch the pro abortion crowd suddenly implode. And simultaneously watch the religious anti-abortion crowd explode.
Below is an interesting video showing Senator Ted Cruz attempting to question Sierra Club President Aaron Mair about anthropogenic global warming. As one might expect, Cruz takes the “it ain’t happening” side, while Mair takes the “it’s happening” side. But regardless of what side you come down on (I happen to find Cruz’s faith in “The Pause” to be scientifically dubious, since it appears that the thermal energy dumped into the system has been flushed to the ocean depths, and that *wouldn’t* show up on satellite data until some time later when the oceans stir a bit) Mair comes off as someone who is far more faith-based than science-based. For example, Cruz repeatedly asked Mair if the Sierra Club would issue a retraction of their “it’s happening” stance if the data showed that it wasn’t… and Mair effectively refused to answer. This is the antithesis of the scientific method. When the data shows that your theory is wrong… change the theory, don’t ignore the data.
Once again I declare that the United States Federal Government needs to enact “scientific legislation.” By that I don’t mean that laws need to be drafted by scientists (political or otherwise), but that each law should come equipped with a series of predictions and tests. If Law X is supposed to reduce the crime rate, then those drafting it should include predictions such as “the crime rate will drop to X per 100,000 in five years, Y per 100,000 in 10 years,” along with *negative* predictions such as “the cost of enforcement will not exceed Z billion dollars.” If the drafters of the law include crazy predictions, the predictions will fail… and the law will be automatically withdrawn after a set period. If the drafters include really weak predictions, so that it stands a better chance of not failing the tests, the other lawmakers will be forced to ask “what’s the point if the claimed benefits are so small?”
I expect I’ll be back to normal blogging sometime this weekend, barring the usual caveats (I might get flattened by a Mack truck, or contract spontaneous ebolapox, or get hit by a meteorite, or win the Lotto and decide to blow this popsicle stand).
In the last few days a stash of Boeing hypersonic reports and diagrams were sold on ebay. I put in good bids, but got beat *bad* and by a number of bidders. If anyone knows who scored these, I’d sure like to be put in touch with ’em.
