Behold as Buttons uses Fingers as a cushion.
Jul 292018
Jul 292018
This piece of artwork of the Convair “Outpost” seems to be a little bit later than the others. It depicts an Outpost with a nuclear reactor for a power sources; this is held off at some (not terribly great) distance for the purposes or radiation mitigation.
Jul 282018
Apparently within the last day or so there has been a social media freakout about the seemingly vast number of children who have gone missing in Iowa lately (see: “In Just the Last Two Weeks, Dozens of Children in Iowa Have Vanished“). While the numbers are accurate, the numbers don’t tell the whole story:
- The numbers do not represent an uptick, but are in line with the average
- The great majority of those who have “vanished” just ran away from home and are back in a day or two of being reported missing.
So in effect this is akin to the “pink tax” or the “wage gap” in terms of being an easily mis-reported outrage-generator. Leave out a few details and the story changes a *lot.*
This of course is not to say that nothing truly nefarious is occurring. Kids do sometimes get kidnapped and disappear. Truly horrific things can happen. Monsters exist. The “humor” produced by the likes of Dan Harmon and James Gunn certainly speaks to the dark oily mass of rancid filth that forms the core of some people, and such folk should be kept an eye out for. But that said, the statistics do not support getting worked up about this. I am old enough to remember the Satanic Panic of the 80’s, the nightmare of “recovered memories,” the McMartin Prechool fiasco, the cultural disaster that was and is “stranger danger.” Todays moral panics include the O Noes Nazis Everywhere nonsense and the fear of violent crime (which is down 50% from the peak in the 90’s). As Jonathan Swift pointed out, Falsehoods flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.
Jul 282018
Huzzah! Yet even more ammunition for the next time some Englandlander snootily looks down upon America and American culture. Not Safe For Work language and Not Safe For Brain people.
It’s awful, but at least its FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS. The show, “Love Island,” is unknown to me… but the *type* of show has been squatting on American TV channels for far too many years. It is the very definition of “opiate of the masses.” It’s exactly the sort of thing that should not exist (it’s not just a waste of time, it actively promotes hideously terrible actions, attitudes, behaviors and people), and it’s exactly the sort of thing that a whole lot of people really love because “drama.”
Jul 282018
Second movement from Beethovens seventh symphony. Just the thing for the world going up in flames. If you haven’t seen “Knowing,” there’s a bit of a spoiler here.
Jul 272018
One The One Hand:
You can now buy your own fully functional semi-automatic coilgun:
Nine hundred fitty bones for a first-gen sci-fi spacegun ain’t bad. From the video, it seems to work jsut fine:
On The Other Hand:
I have but one issue with it:
| Muzzle velocity | 45 m/s |
| Muzzle energy | 4.65J |
Meh. Get ten times the muzzle velocity and a hundred times the energy, then we’ll talk. The system is advertised as being 6.5% efficient, so presumably some improvements can be made there. 45 M/s is a mere 147 ft/sec, 4.65 J is a mere 3.43 foot-pounds. A .22 caliber air rifle generates about 26 foot-pounds of muzzle energy, while a .22 rifle generates around 130 foot-pounds.
For what it is, I like the looks of it. It would probably be better as a bullpup arrangement to build up barrel/accelerator length without greatly increasing rifle length.
Jul 272018
Another artists impression of the outpost, showing assembly of the laboratory from multiple vehicles and payloads.
Jul 272018
Great googaly moogaly. The city of Redding, California, is on the verge of being eaten alive by a wildfire. This is one of those rare occasions when Twitter makes sense.
Deadly Carr Fire blazes toward Redding, California, as evacuations mount https://t.co/z6cZdmsmJl
— William Rusk (@willdrusk) July 27, 2018
Redding TV station reports devastating fire, then evacuates live on air as flames approach https://t.co/Ugubefve2S
— sue Ann williams (@Earthminus10_) July 27, 2018
Fire strikes Redding, California, a city with 90,000 residents. People on the scene describe a 'wall of flames' and say the blaze is 'moving extremely quickly and erratically'. https://t.co/FltqFoFYSg #CarrFire
— Adam Samson (@adamsamson) July 27, 2018
Bulldozer operator killed, three firefighters injured battling the Carr Fire burning in and near Redding
Yikes:
Jul 262018
Proposal Eliminates Employer-Provided Lunches In SF Because Restaurants Can’t Compete
The titles pretty much says it all. Some restaurants near big companies are having trouble because nobody shows up at lunchtime because the employees eat at work for free, so some city supervisors want to make free food provided by the employers illegal.
At first glance, the proper response to that is “well, that’s just stupid.” But then… give it some thought. The basic concept could – and should – be expanded upon. Employers are now *required* to provide health care benefits to employees. But doesn’t that harm other possible providers? Get rid of that. Employers are also required to withhold part of your income for Social Security and whatnot. But that harms other businesses where you could have a retirement investment.
Imagine it: San Francisco could become ground zero for a movement that results in work becoming real, real simple: you show up, you do your job, you get a paycheck. THAT’S IT. Come tax time, the company hasn’t withheld anything; your paychecks were probably in the area of 30-50% higher, so you, being a responsible non-dumbass, wisely socked away a good chunk of your pay. And you can easily write the IRS a big fat check, and you’ll get to see real clear just how much the government takes from you.
This is the second such head scratcher from out that-a-way in recent days. Just a few days ago, the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most left-wing of the circuit courts, finally recognized that mere citizens *do* actually have the right to be armed outside the home. Shocking, I know, that such obviousness was noted there… but there it is.
Jul 262018
Illustrations from a childrens book about space stations from 1960. This was when Men were Men, Women were Women, it was okay to be white and everyone wore their best business suits to board a rocket into space.
Sigh. The optimism of that era is just plain unrecognizable. The past is like a whole different country.
