The “Goring Fire” flared up about a dozen miles north of here this afternoon, apparently sparked by a lightning strike. It has quickly grown to 7,000 acres (going from “must be a doozy of a fire” to “humdinger”). While it seems very unlikely that the fire will get anywhere near here, the smoke sure as hell has. Stanky.
This evening the effort to stamp out the fire – an effort which seems to be ongoing – involved the use of aircraft. I saw a BAE 146 with a fat belly repeatedly flying back and forth (I understand it’s based at Hill Air Force Base), as well as a C-130 that did at least two sorties. It’s now hours past sundown and the winds have shifted a bit; it’s not nearly as awful out. But the fire is visible to the naked eye as a red glow on the northern horizon, and the red-lit clouds of smoke come through quite clearly via photography. Should have some interesting photos if I can gin up the enthusiasm to dump ’em onto the computer and deal with them.
On July 25, 2018, a meteor smacked into the upper atmosphere not far from the Thule Air Force Base in Greenland and exploded with the energy of a 2.1 kiloton nuke. This is not unusual. But the impact speed was kinda high… 24.4 km/sec. For comparative purposes, the “interstellar asteroid” Oumuamua was going about 26 km/sec. this means Earth got clocked by something From Beyond. Edit: note really *that* on high compared to other impactors. If you look at the chart here…
…this impact was substantially higher than those listed in the ten most recent impacts. But if you expand the chart to the most recent 100, it begins to look less extraordinary. Still faster than most, but there are a number of faster ones… on 2017-03-09, one hit at 36.5 km/sec.
There seems to be something to the thought “I can win elections” that somehow translates into “I’m an expert in everything.” It seems to be a virtual universal at all levels. Both the current and prior occupant of the White House are fantastic examples of that… both were capable of running winning campaigns, but neither had much (and in the case of Obama, *any*) actual experience in the relevant areas of governance.
Longer version of the video:
I’ve often wondered if experts called to give testimony before these self-important ignorant baboons are given Xanax or quaaludes or something to keep them calm. I’d have a hard time stopping myself from saying something to the effect of “what the hell is wrong with you?” The admiral here maintains calm magnificently in the face of invincible ignorance.
Often in nuclear test footage there’s a great big mushroom cloud. As I don;t need to explain but will anyway because why not, the cloud is basically dirt and smoke that has gotten sucked up into the fireball; and since the fireball is *very* low density compared to the cooler surrounding air, it ascends like a balloon and drags the dirt and smoke and dust and ash along with it.
But then there was the “Wrangell” test from Operation Hardtack II, Oct 22, 1958. This was a dinky 0.115 kiloton airbust, suspended from a balloon at 1500 feet above the desert floor. As you can see in the videos, the fireball never comes anywhere near the surface. The ground isn’t cratered, probably isn’t substantially disturbed by the relatively small burst (dust is kicked up over a distance of perhaps a mile or two, but that dust isn’t sucked up to the fireball). And yet as the fireball cools, a whole lot of smoke is left floating in the air. I *assume* that this is the balloon and the bomb itself, converted into vapor and reacted with the air, but there sure does seem to be a lot of it. Could some of it be the air itself, perhaps nitric oxide compounds created by the high temperatures?
A piece of color art, scanned from a 35mm slide at NASA HQ some years back. The Lockheed STAR Clipper was an early concept for a reusable 1.5 STO launch vehicle, a predecessor to the Space Shuttle. The STAR Clipper was described and illustrated in unnecessarily *vast* degree in Aerospace Projects Review issue V3N2 and in US Launch Vehicle Projects #2.
The STAR Clipper was an interesting design which was popular and well known for a while, receiving lot of kinda-press… it, or shuttles very much like it in appearance, appeared in a lot of publicity art produced by Lockheed, NASA, the USAF and even other companies. For a while it was the Shuttle Stereotype.
One YouTube channel I watch from time to time is “The Quartering.” TQ focuses on gaming and comics, neither of which I’m a particular aficionado of, but he covers them regarding cultural matters (specifically the rot of social justice), which I do care about. He made the choice of letting his face be clearly visible on his videos and his name is known.
So yesterday he went to GenCon in Indianapolis. Someone walked up to him in public, asked him if he was Jeremy, and, when he confirmed it… the guy started beating on him. It seems a concussion was delivered in the process.
Unfortunately the assault was apparently not caught on camera (though it won’t surprise me if security camera footage appears at some point). Fortunately, there were witnesses *and* the perp wore fairly distinctive apparel. And since the perp attacked a guy who knows how to make and upload videos *AND* has a sizable audience, very shortly after the fact… this happened:
The apparent criminal here is not just some random guy, but is an owner of a game company. A company that I think just bought a truckload of bad PR. I won’t name him or the company (because it could be mistaken ID), but they’re given in the video. The victim of the assault has made it clear he’s going to pursue all legal avenues. Good.
The perp was found due to a verbal description given in the earlier video, then a bunch of people going through a bunch of vids and photos from GenCon. Which makes me wonder Just How Frikken’ Stupid this guy had to be. Was booze involved? could be. But given what the crowd ha already found out about this guy, he was predisposed to violence against anyone not on the far left: the “punch Nazis” shirt is prima facia evidence of that. And you have to wonder what photos of the guy wearing a shirt where he advocates violence against regular people (because “Nazi” has been so over-used that that’s what the word means now) will do to the legal situation. It goes from being “oops, sorry, I was Teh Dronk. My bad” to “premeditated attempted murder.” And of course now it means that anyone wearing a “punch Nazis” shirt is automatically assumed to be in the process of planning or carrying out a violent assault.
Ever wonder why I don’t post clearly identifiable photos of myself? Hmmm. I wonder why that might be.
For more info and social media screenshots and information on the alleged perp, check out THIS.
So, Defense Distributed won the right to post their own designs online without government prior restraint. Huzzah! But then a single judge came along and put the kybosh on that, at least for the moment. Boo. However it works out, though, there are a few statements that I believe should be recorded for the ages regarding these designs for a big, heavy, unreliable and expensive plastic zip guns:
“The people who make them will be state actors or well-financed criminal cartels who have the ability to execute well-organized criminal attacks in the United States and elsewhere,” said Avery Gardiner, the co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Gardiner fears it will make it easier for terrorists and people who are too dangerous to pass criminal background checks to get their hands on guns.
“I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that.”
Let me repeat that for those who think that the anti-gun nuts are reasonable people and that it’s those who want to keep their rights who are the fear mongers:
“I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that.”
“I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that.”
“I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that.”
Never forget who the *real* gun nuts are: those who so live in terror of inanimate objects that they will lie and try to scare people in order to keep law abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves.
For nearly fifty years, “2001” nerds like me waited for a decent, kinda-affordable model of the “Discovery” spacecraft. And last year Moebius produced just that, a 1/144 scale injection molded kit that anyone with somewhere between $150 and $200 could get.
The “Kiki Challenge” involves stepping out of a MOVING CAR.
“We were over by the roundabout, and I thought it would be a fun idea to do the Kiki Challenge… I tried, and the last thing I remember was opening the door. So apparently I got out and tripped and fell and hit my head.”
A lot of people think that it’s a shame that voting rates are so low, that we should be doing more to expand the franchise. This here is evidence that *fewer* people should be voting. Anyone doing the “Kiki Challenge” or swallowing Tide Pods or swallowing teaspoons full of cinnamon or snorting condoms or joining Antifa or blocking highways or wearing Che-shirts has demonstrated insufficient intelligence and/or sense to be allowed the reins of voting power.
OK, OK, this is basically yet another moral panic. “O Noes, the kids these days are particularly stupid, society is dooooomed.” But there *are* some number of rampaging dumbfarks who think that this sort of thing is a good idea. These sort of things differ from normal immature dumbfrakery that kids get into in some important ways. These things are not done for the entertainment value of the thing itself, but for Instagram fame. As such, the risks involved are not offset by the ability to truly enjoy them (what actual enjoyment can one get from pouring hot water on yourself or someone else, as opposed to binge drinking or slam dancing or whatever the kids do these days), and as such, the level of SHEER STUPIDITY far outweighs everything else.
