Jan 152016
 

Even though the odds of winning were one in 292 million… somehow, you didn’t win. You spent all your money, and you got cheated out of $1.5 billion. Outrage! So, what do you do? Do you take this as an important lesson about the important of understanding basic mathematics and how that relates to a household budget? No, that’s for suckers. Instead, clearly the right approach is to ask other people to give you *their* money:

A Powerball Reimbursement Go Fund Me Page Has Been Created

A woman named “Cinnamon Nicole” (the article doesn’t say, but with a name like that I’m assuming she’s a nuclear physicist) claimed to have blown all her families money on Lotto tickets, “expecting” to win $1.5Billion. Now they’re broke, and she’s asking *you* to pay her. The Go Fund Me page seems to have been taken down since the article was published, but somehow she’d managed to garner at least $800 before the end.

 Posted by at 11:46 am
Jan 132016
 

A single painting created (by noted illustrator Attila Hejja) in 1981 led to a whole lot of speculation about an “F-19.” Even in the era before the internet allowed BS and rampant unfounded speculation to spread easily around the world, this illustration quickly led to a belief that this was a serious design… probably by Lockheed, and probably to be the F-19. It is indeed a spiffy looking aircraft, but it is much more science fiction than aerospace engineering. It appeared in magazines, books, toys and model kits, modified to greater or lesser degrees.

The painting is usually attributed to Loral, which is rather obvious given that it was prominently used by Loral in the ad below. But it appears that it was created for the Dod and is, in fact, in the public domain.

1984-01-23-54

To download the full-rez version from the Aviation Week archive, click here:

http://archive.aviationweek.com/image/spread/19840123/54/1/zoom

And a reasonable-rez version of the painting is available here:

https://research.archives.gov/id/6343685

 Posted by at 12:09 am
Jan 122016
 

Iran has just kidnapped 10 US sailors:

10 U.S. sailors in Iranian custody

Claims are that they will be released “promptly.” Sure. I have no doubt that the Iranians are fully trustworthy. The sailors were nabbed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, not the Iranian Navy. The Revolutionary Guards are the whackjobs of the Iranian military, so there’s that.

Mission-Accomplished-Obama

UPDATE: Huh. The Iranians have actually let the captives go. This is a bit of a surprise. One wonders what the Iranians got in exchange.

 

 Posted by at 5:12 pm
Jan 112016
 

During New Years  celebrations in Germany,  a whole bunch of migrants from the middle east decided to do some cultural outreach and shared some of their culture with the native German women by raping a few hundred of them. In the past day or so, Germans, grateful for the opportunity to share in such a diverse bonanza of civilizations, shared some of their culture with the migrants by beating the tar out of a number of them.

Awesome. Nothing about this can possibly go wrong.

herewego

carlton

 

——–

And then there’s this:

European migrant crisis causing dangerous gender imbalance in region, expert warns

Bullet points (data may not be accurate, who knows):

  • 58% of the migrants into Europe last year were adult men. A full 17% were adult women. the rest were children.
  • Sweden has 123 boys for 100 girls, a worse ratio than China (117 to 100).
  • 71% of the migrants to Sweden were male.
  • Over 90% of the 16 and 17 year old migrants were male.

Awesome. AWESOME.

Europe had better figure this out, and soon. My suggestion: ship the male refugees back to Syria (screw trying to figure out where they were *originally* from, just ship ’em all to Syria) until the ratio of male/female refugees in Europe are 1:1. There’s precisely zero reason why these brave males should have left their womenfolk behind.

koln

 Posted by at 3:23 pm
Jan 112016
 

Died of cancer overnight.

Not a particular favorite of mine, but I suppose there’ll be some interest here. He was of course responsible for “Space Oddity,” one of a string of popular songs that makes spaceflight sound sad and depressing; he was also responsible for creating his son Zowie. Zowie, fortunately, was well-adjusted enough to prefer to be called something less obviously “crazed idiot celebrity,” and is now known as Duncan Jones. Jones directed the science fiction movie “Moon” a few years ago, which, while yet again being a “spaceflight is sad” pop culture artifact, was at least a reasonably intelligent flick.

 Posted by at 8:26 am
Jan 102016
 

Years ago I bought a Saturn V blueprint off ebay. I then scanned it and sold it on my site. One buyer was Randall Munroe of XKCD,who used it as a basis for his “Up Goer Five.” I suggested to him that he should sell large prints of the UG5, which he did (I imagine I was hardly the only one to suggest this to him). Someone bought one of these prints and stuck it up in a restoration facility at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center, where it was photographed in the background during the restoration of the original starship Enterprise filming model. See here:

Star Trek NCC-1701 Studio Model Restoration in 2015

DSCN6074

ug5

So, yeah, it’s a stretch to lay claim to any value here… but whatever there may be I’ll take.

 Posted by at 7:21 pm
Jan 102016
 

A Mil 24 Hind with a difference:

What we have here is a highly modified Hind that will serve as a technology testbed. In particular new rotors meant to increase cruise speed to 194 knots, and top speed to an impressive 216 knots.

Seems to me to be somewhat akin to the Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk, an advanced (for the time, 1970) high speed helicopter made by using components from the Sikorsky S-61.

More info and photos here:

Meet Russia’s New High-Speed Helicopter Testbed

 Posted by at 2:09 am