This is just one of a great many videos that have been put together over the years illustrating the size of things. This one shows everything from the quantum foam to the large scale structure of the universe, using what looks like a whole lot of Sketchup models. The video is pretty interesting; the narration… well…
Chris here is simply entertaining. Like many popular YouTubers, he started off as one thing (yapping about video games) and morphed into something else (mockery of current political insanity). He’s a self-proclaimed Leftie, but he’s got a decent head on his shoulders… and a damn fine sense of humor. If I were to yammer about politics on YouTube (not gonna, don’t worry), it would be like this, just probably less funny and less watchable. And certainly with less musical ability.
As one might expect, Chris tends to focus a lot on video game and YouTube culture. But even if you are not involved in those, the crazy nonsense that infects them troubles the rest of society, or soon will. And so I appreciate Chris Ray Guns energetic and foul-mouthed takedowns of nonsense.
Sunday night News Update: over $47,000.
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Saturday Night News Update: It’s up to $42,600.
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The news tonight announced that the reward for the arrest of the torturer/killer of Sage the cat is now up to $30,000. They gave no word on what the bounty is up to to provide the accused a therapeutic shanking.
Some may wonder why the story of a cat being brutalized is worth more time than any of a wide galaxy of news stories of *humans* being brutalized. There are probably a whole lot of reasons, but to me it kinda comes down to this: if you murder a human, unless you are particularly crazy or stupid, you probably know that the justice system may well drop a jail on you. But a whole lot of people think that if they do the same to an animal, nobody will give a damn. Consequently, there’s a whole lot of animal cruelty that could probably be avoided if those who might want to do it knew that if they get caught they could be defenestrated through a special window in the tail of a C-5 Galaxy orbiting over Syria at 40,000 feet.
Cruelty to animals is the same evil as cruelty to children. Sure, the victims may not be as important as a kid… but anyone who has ever actually known a cat or a dog knows that the *pain* these animals can feel is the same that a child can feel. I’ve said it before: cats and dogs are particularly special, because they’re on our team. When the aliens invade, it’ll be the cats and dogs fighting alongside us. OK, sure, the cats might not engage in quite the same combat… but if we need someone to shit in the aliens shoes, the cats will have our backs.
Now, I’m no whacko animal rights activist. Put a spider in front of me, I’m’a gonna smash it. If it’s a brown recluse, I’m’a gonna MacGuyver a flamethrower. And then I’ll eat some tasty, tasty cooked cow. And I will feel bad not at all if my own pack of furry murderers take down a mouse… given that mice are horrid little plague-bearing vermin, they’re low on my list of favorite things. But you know what I don’t do? Torture mice to death. Because inflicting unnecessary pain on something even as small and insignificant as a mouse serves no purpose except petty evil.
So here I was, minding my own business when several of my cats started acting glitchy. This is not unknown… where some dogs will bark their damnfool heads off if they hear a stranger on their turf, my cats warn me of visitors or trespassers in their own quieter way. In this case it was a UPS truck and the driver bringing a box to my door. As I hadn’t ordered anything recently, this was a puzzlement.
As it turns out, it was a copy of Dennis Jenkins three-volume book “Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013.” This is the latest, and presumably last, edition of the premiere tome on the history of the Space Shuttle. It is vastly expanded from the previous editions, now over 1,500 pages.
In short… if’n you’re at all interested in the Space Shuttle, procure yourself a copy of this book. It’s a billet of hardback paper massive enough to brain an ape, filled with full-color art & photos, diagrams and data galore. The first volume describes the early history of the Shuttle from World War II up through the 70’s; the second volume is a detailed technical description of the Space Transportation System. The third volume describes the operational history of the Shuttle program.
If you like projects/unbuilt designs, the first volume in particular provides an embarrassment of riches.
In short, I wholeheartedly endorse this book. It’s friggen’ awesome.
With every purchase of “Space Shuttle,” you’ll receive one free Raedthinn-approved Fort Of Imagination.
Note: seems my copy came to me due to my having contributed very, very slightly to it, another concept I wholeheartedly approve of. Thus, thanks to Dennis Jenkins for providing me with this!
Pretty sure this was not how this BBC interview was supposed to go…
Coming soonish: the return of USXP publications. Five are under current development and are mostly done. There is a new title in the bunch… USRP. Strictly speaking it should probably be USR&RP… United States Research and Recon Projects. Perhaps Recon and Research aren’t necessarily the most obvious categories to link together into a single title, but apart from the vitally important alliteration, there is this important fact: compared to, say, Bombers, there aren’t that many Recon and Research projects out there.
If there are specific proposals, or general categories you’d like to see in future publications, feel free to comment below.
RAMBO (Rapid Additively Manufactured Ballistics Ordnance) is a 40mm grenade launcher built *almost* entirely from 3d-printed metal parts. Looks like this:
On the one hand… meh. A grenade launcher is a relatively low-performance device, certainly compared to the 1911 that was 3d printed a few years ago. The level of precision and the pressures involved are less than for a standard firearm.
On the other hand… it’s only been a few years since the idea of actually printing a metal object, never mind a firearm, was pure sci-fi.
Even the ammunition was 3d printed. the launcher was fired 15 times, with no signs of damage or degradation.
The barrel and receiver took about 70 hours to print and required around five hours of post-process machining.
The printing and post-processing time may well exceed the time needed to conventionally machine the same p[arts, but in time this will improve. And it *may* be less labor intensive… instead of someone marshaling a chunk of metal through the CNC milling process, the printer *may* require no more than to enter the data, hit “print,” then step out for a couple dozen beers. If the printer system can be reduced in size, increased in speed and reliability, and properly packaged, I can see the Army putting these printers into small standard shipping containers along with an appropriate generator. The containers could be transported to bases near the combat zone to print out weapons on demand. This might be a few decades off before it’s truly practical, but then it might be shipped to our boys fighting on the beaches of the Belgian Caliphate in only a few years. Hard to predict.
What’s not hard to predict: that some people will promptly lose their mind at the idea of firearms that can be manufactured without the need for a factory… or for a federal registry. And so, from this article on the subject we get:
You might also worry that this technology could find its way into the wrong hands. It was scary enough when libertarian gun nuts were printing one-shot pistols in their garages. Imagine a wannabe terrorist 3-printing a damn grenade launcher in his basement.
Oooh, scary libertarians with guns!
The advantage of 3d printing firearms is in rapidly stamping out new designs. But if your goal isn’t to try out something new, but rather to just get something that works… a terrorist has a whole lot of far cheaper options available.
Now that the Cassini space probe is doing death-defying dives past the Saturnian ring system, it’s getting some close-up views of the dinky lil’ moon that inhabit the rings . One such moon (within the Enke gap) is Pan, which exhibits a very unusual feature… it’s own little ring system. In the case of Pan, the rings are accreted directly onto the surface, forming a pronounced equatorial ridge running all the way around the little (34.4×31.4×20.8 km) world. The rings are far thinner than most people understand… perhaps just a few meters. So unless the moon tumbles – and it appears that Pan does not – the moon will scoop up bits of dust on a single thin plane.
Pan is not alone… the moon Atlas shows the same structure.
UPDATE:
Sage the cat died this afternoon.
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This led off the local nightly news tonight.
There are photos that will ruin your mood and, if you’re at all like me, make you want to set up a second reward. The first rewards is $5000 for anyone who can provide tips that lead to an arrest. But I kinda want a second reward set up for *after* the suspect is found, arrested, tried and convicted.
Chances are good that this was done by a kid. If so, I expect to see family members yammering on about “he’s a good kid” or some such factually indefensible rubbish. Whether perpetrated by a kid or an adult, though, society doesn’t need him among us. If someone can provide a good, valid reason why a jail term followed by deportation to Somalia isn’t a proper response for such behavior, I’d like to read it.
The Humane Society of Northern Utah is paying the vet bills. As of the news report, it was far from clear that Sage the cat would survive. I certainly hope he does… partially just on general principles, partially because this cat, after being tortured and broken and blinded, managed to find his way home and crawl in through the dog door.
www.humanesocietyofnorthernutah.com
… here are two Thunderf00t videos discussing recent projects that have consumed lots of money but which were based on bad science, bad math and bad engineering.
The self-filling water bottle remains a stumper to me. The basic idea is quite simple: a solar powered dehumidifier. Not exactly staggeringly new technology. Yet, the math behind the concept is available and accessible for anyone to do… and the math shows that the idea is *monumentally* impractical. And still people shovel truckloads of cash at these efforts.