Here’s your “Well, *DUH*” headline for today

 Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., politics, wisdom  3 Responses »
Jan 192016
 

For English cop, Detroit’s streets are a culture shock

Well, duh.

Where the article gets it wrong: the blame here seems to settle almost entirely on “gun culture.” But there’s not more of a “gun culture” in Detroit than there is in, say, Salt Lake City. What there *is* is a difference in *overall* culture between the two cities. Detroit has been run by scumbags, for scumbags, for decades.

Well, as Britain starts to load up on “migrants” who seem to have as high a tolerance of scumbaggery as many of the denizens of Detroit… get ready for London policing to become more like Detroit policing.

 Posted by at 1:44 pm

A Modest Proposal

 blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, religion, wisdom, ಠ_ಠ  8 Responses »
Jan 182016
 

We’ve seen this story more and more recently:

Wisconsin lawnmower factory says it will FIRE all 53 of its Muslim employees if they take unscheduled prayer breaks

In short: a bunch of the employees on an assembly line walk away from their jobs twice a day, apart from the scheduled break times. The business has a problem with this… not really surprising, as having people step away from an assembly line can mean the whole process grinds to a halt. The article does not say how many employees the company has as a whole, but if the prayer-walkoffs do cause the whole company to lock up, then I can see why this would be a major problem.

So, I have a solution which everyone should appreciate.

Some groundrules for my solution:

  1. Those who want to wander off and pray are allowed to do so.
  2. Those who don’t should not be made to pay for it. This means not only the company, but other employees… they shouldn’t have to put in extra time because their co-workers weren’t on the job.

So… my solution is simple. If shutting down the production line twice a day for, say, ten minutes at a time without extending the work day to make up for it costs the company (handwave) $5000 a day in lost productivity… those employees who want to leave to go pray get to make up the difference. Fifty employees cough up the $5K/day difference, or $100 per day per employee.

Seems simple enough.  The company doesn’t suffer economic losses, the other employees don’t have to stay late, and those who want to go pray get to go pray. Simple! Fair! Equitable!

Also noted in the story is that the company has a dedicated “prayer room.” One wonders… if during  Prayer Shutdown someone wanted to use the “prayer room” to sacrifice a pig to Odin or Pele, or even just have a ham sammich, swig some mead, and sing sagas about That One Time Ragnar Went A’Whorin’ In Cairo, would the other inhabitants of said prayer room complain? Well, if history is any guide, Odinists are not really welcome in generic “Multicultural Rooms.” Which is exactly why if there are any pagans working at this manufacturing facility, they should make full use of the “prayer room.”

 Posted by at 9:14 am

Whups.

 Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  11 Responses »
Jan 182016
 

Video of the Falcon 9 landing,  burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. Or something like that. Basically it boils down to “oooh, so close.” I’m not convinced that the rocket would have stayed upright even if the landing gear hadn’t collapsed, due to the rough seas; but it’s still a hell of an effort.

 

Given that weather seems like it might have played a role here, my earlier comment hearkening back to the Challenger suggestion “don’t launch when it’s cold” suddenly seems pretty applicable. “Don’t launch when it’s foggy,” or, more likely, “don’t expect to get it back if you launch when it’s foggy.”

 Posted by at 12:56 am

You daily dose of Hurrr, Herp and Derp

 dumbassery, Forward!, projects, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Jan 172016
 

Gentlemen, behold! The absolutely dumbest thing you’ll read all day. And unless you also read Donald Trumps dream journal, very likely the dumbest thing you’ll read all week:

International students, here’s what you need to know about guns in America to survive your education

The sheer amount of dishonest propaganda contained in this screed simply boggles the mind. For instance:

States that allow guns on campus. Since guns are carried in a concealed fashion, it will never be clear who is packing one, so these are the most dangerous states: Colorado, Idaho, and Utah.

The author is attempting to claim that university campii in Colorado, Idaho and Utah are particularly dangerous places because they allow concealed carry on campus. Guess how many students have been shot by a concealed carry license holder on Utah or Idaho since 1990. Go on, GUESS.

Here’s a hint for anyone considering visiting the US, as a student, tourist, on business travel or whatever: if you don’t want to get shot, follow this one simple rule: don’t engage in criminal behavior. That’s the number on thing that gets people shot: their own criminality. Yes, there are some places to avoid. Seedy areas. Run down areas. Chicago. Detroit. Anyplace with a long record of Democratic party dominance. But these are unlikely to be the places you want to go anyway.

 Posted by at 4:29 pm

Looks like Falcon 9 went kersplat

 AARRRGH, blather, Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  11 Responses »
Jan 172016
 

A SpaceX Falcon 9 was launched out of Vandenberg today, putting an ocean observation satellite into orbit. A secondary goal was to land the first stage on a barge out at sea… it appears that this was not successful. The rocket landed on the barge but didn’t stick the landing; it seems one of the legs may have collapsed due to hitting too hard. Ocean conditions were pretty rough, as can be seen in the video below… which cut off literally seconds before the landing at about 50:30.

So… from a limited dataset, the Falcon 9 is good at landing on pads that aren’t bobbing up and down, not so good at landing on pads that are in motion. Even if this issue isn’t resolved, it’s still useful on many missions to be able to land-recover the first stage.

So, presuming the booster was lost on landing, what we have here is a learning experience. If it was NASA… program shutdown, months of Congressional hearings. SpaceX: “don’t launch when it’s cold.” Or to be more specific, don’t expect to land when the seas are rough.

 Posted by at 12:59 pm

Welfare State Madness

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., politics, reshaping the world, ಠ_ಠ  6 Responses »
Jan 152016
 

If this is accurate, it indicates that the Swedish government is *insane:*

Sweden: “No Apartments, No Jobs, No Shopping Without A Gun”

Now, Swedes see the welfare system failing them. More and more senior citizens fall into the “indigent” category; close to 800,000 of Sweden’s 2.1 million retirees, despite having worked their whole lives, are forced to live on between 4,500 and 5,500 kronor ($545 – $665) a month. Meanwhile, seniors who immigrate to Sweden receive the so-called “elderly support subsidy” — usually a higher amount — even though they have never paid any taxes in Sweden.

Worse, in 2013 the government decided that people staying in the country illegally have a right to virtually free health and dental care. So while the destitute Swedish senior citizen must choose between paying 100,000 kronor ($12,000) to get new teeth or living toothless, a person who does not even have the right to stay in Sweden can get his teeth fixed for 50 kronor ($6).

Neat. So… who wants a Scandinavian-style welfare state here in the US?

 Posted by at 7:42 pm

Space Madness

 Hmm..., news, science  9 Responses »
Jan 152016
 

Remember KIC 8462852, the star that had such a weird light curve that serious people suggested that, just maybe, it was surrounded by a partial Dyson Sphere? Other serious people attacked the mystery in two ways:

  1. Examine the system for evidence of radio and other emissions that might indicate intelligence
  2. examine the data to see the the light curve is being produced by something natural but weird, like a massive cloud of comets

Sadly unsurprisingly, the first group came up negative: no data indicating aliens. But it turns out the second group came up with bupkis. Apparently, what the astronomers have found is an F3 main sequence star that is just… flickering. It has day-long dips in output of up to 20%, and has substantially dimmed over the last century. In order to explain this via comets, 648,000 giant comets (nuclei 200 km in diameter) would be needed. The total mass of this hypothetical cloud of comets would be 40% of the mass of the Earth. This seems highly unlikely, so for the moment is appears that this star is just… acting kinda funny.

KIC 8462852 Faded at an Average Rate of 0.165+-0.013 Magnitudes Per Century From 1890 To 1989

I have my own ideas on what might be messing with the star.

 

 Posted by at 7:32 pm
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