There almost certainly was a color version of this manipulated photo of the VAB (note the spaceplane).
Sep 182016
Sep 182016
Story one: terrorist bombs in New York City.
New York explosion leaves dozens injured
One bomb went off in a dumpster. Another one was found unexploded. It’s a pressure-cooker bomb, perhaps similar to the Boston Bombing bombs.
Story two:
Philadelphia gunman left rambling letter, police commissioner says
The shooter shot a whole bunch of people, killing one. Seems in his rambling letter he expressed his hatred of the police. Hmmm. I wonder if there are any current political movements whose anti-police rhetoric these last few years might have inspired this guy.
Sep 172016
Woo.
The engineering of this attempt was clearly better than Evel Kneivels shot 40 years ago… but the *psychology* of it doesn’t seem to be there. I was just a youngun when Evel made his attempt, but I remember it being Big News, while this one was nearly stealthy by comparison. And the choice of putting the viewing area where the spectators would be looking STRAIGHT AT THE SUN? Lame. There also doesn’t seem to have been an accurate countdown… a lot of the videos make it look like the people were a little surprised at just when the thing launched.
Sep 172016
A bit NSFW… but also chock-a-block with words of wisdom.
Sep 172016
Behold the crap-tastic dubbing in these trailers for “Guardians,” a forthcoming Russian superhero movie. As best as I can tell, the idea is that the Soviet Union created a small number of superheroes, folded, and now, decades later, supervillains are attacking Moscow and those superheroes need to come back to save the day. Given that the USSR fell a quarter century ago, I guess the heroes were just kids. Kids who grew up with terrible narration and even worse dubbing. But from the looks of the visuals, the film makers seems to have been on their game.
Now, the question is: if people are supposed to accept that super-powered metahumans produced by the Kremlin make for heroes, how about metahumans produced by Nazi Germany? North Koreas Captain Juche? Hamas Man? The mind boggles at the possibilities of “superheroes” produced by, for or in horrible regimes. How many of them would be accepted by the moviegoing public?
Let’s say the standard Magical Meteorite fell into Richmond, Virginia, in 1847, was picked up by a local plantation owner and its emanations turned his infant son into The Overseer, a Superman-like character dedicated to Truth, Justice and Maintaining The Peculiar Institution. During the War of Southern Aggression, The Overseer was just coming of age and was about to turn the tide when Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, used his arcane knowledge obtained from a deep reading of the Necronomicon to put The Overseer into suspended animation in a mirror-lined chamber deep under the Smithsonian. But now the Earth is under attack by Big Headed Yakub, and the US government needs to bring The Overseer out of the shadows to save us all…
Yeah. That’d go over well.
Sep 162016
The past week or more, Raedthinn has been acting a little “off.” Picky with his food, verbally complaining much, sleeping in seclusion. A few days ago I finally noticed something wrong with his top left fang. For lack of a better description, it appeared to have Fang Cancer. So yesterday he went to the vet who declared “really bad tooth decay.” Today I picked him up, sans one fang. So after having lost a fang and a half last year, and one more today, he’s now down to a fang and a half.
This displeases him.
Sep 162016
High speed footage of the foam plug inserted into the throat of the SLS solid rocket motor tested hereabouts a few months back. The purpose was to keep unwanted stuff – dirt, water, birds, hippies, etc. – out of the motor prior to ignition, and then to get the frak out of the way once the motor is up and running.
Sep 162016
If you are interested in the nearly forgotten McDonnell Model 119/ Model 120 four-engine executive jet transport, the Aviation Archives blog has been running a series of posts with photos, diagram, pilots handbooks, the works. Go check ’em out.
Sep 142016
Answer: No.
The One billion dollars question: Did Syria or its allies shoot down an Israeli F-35 Lightning II over the Syrian Golan?
Considering that Israel doesn’t actually have any F-35’s to get shot down… no.
Sep 142016
“Kulning” is a form of high-pitched singing used in Scandinavia as a way to herd cattle. The tones are such that it echoes off the mountains and propagates well across great distances. And I freakin’ defy you to claim that you’d rather listen to Kanye West or whoever is popular these days than this: