The Atlas rocket was a “balloon” of thin metal. It was only able to stand up on the pad – never mind accelerate in flight – because internal pressure kept the structure from collapsing. But if that pressurization fails…
Dec 312018
Dec 312018
Palestinian-American sentenced to life in prison by PA for selling properties to Jews
Short form: An American citizen living in East Jerusalem has been sentenced to life at hard labor for facilitating the sale of “Palestinian” land to Jews.
As the “criminal” is a US citizen, I wonder what the official US government response to this is going to be.
Dec 302018
The New Horizons probe will zip past the small Kuiper Belt object “Ultima Thule” at abut 12:30 AM eastern time (10:30 PM Mountain). NASA TV should cover it, but there’s also Ye Olde Interwebs:
How to Watch New Horizons’ Ultima Thule Flyby on New Year’s Day: A Webcast Guide
Given the distance and the consequent low data rate, I don’t imagine images will be forthcoming. Those will probably trickle in over the subsequent days, assuming the probe survives. Even now Ultima Thule appears as just a single pixel, but the light curve has been sufficiently puzzling that one explanation has been that it is surrounded by a cloud of particles or micro-moons. Which would be awesome, so long as New Horizons doesn’t hit one of them.
Dec 302018
But this time, the wearer was prepared and recording. As far as real-life trolling efforts go, this was SPECTACULAR. It’s not only hilarious on the surface, it’s also instructive, showing clearly just how unhinged many people are.
NOTE: The language here is as NSFW as it can get.
The original video was posted to Facebook, but I can’t access it. Shrug. Probably made private or something. However, the internet never forgets, and thus there’s this:
Note that with the two main characters here, one is full of joy, the other is full of rage, hate and crazy. This is a recipe for some durned entertaining video, and it certainly delivers. However, as Sargon points out in his review, it’s not a perfect performance. MAGA-dude turned in a good performance, but a few minor tweaks and it could have been truly perfect.
The employee in question was apparently insta-fired by the company which, given the evidence at hand, was likely the wisest course of action. Otherwise the vape shop would have been inundated with dudes wearing Trump shirts and MAGA hats, hoping for a run-in with Screechy McTrigglyscruff here.
Given how the far left is doing everything they can to wipe out the ability of people on the right to earn a living, it’s only fair to troll lefties and, for the ones who are ruled, nay, dominated by their passions like this guy, show their madness to the world. If it results in them getting canned… well, turnabout/fair play, goose/gander, whatever.
While intentionally trolling whackos in real life is not really my thing, I appreciate the sheer joy with which this guy engages in it. Fictional Vikings (perhaps even real ones) and Klingons share the virtue of laughter in the face of the enemy, and that’s how it should be. Humor and mockery are concepts that ill-programmed NPCs like this simply cannot process. And laughing your way through the insanity of life is a better approach than giving in to despair. Back when I was an occasional airline flier, I harbored the secret hope that *if* the wings snapped off at 30,000 feet, when the investigators finally found a surviving memory card from someones phone there’d be video of a lot of people screaming in terror… and a brief glimpse of me with my hands in the air yelling “WHEEEEE!” like I was on a roller coaster. Because why not? Nothing you can do to affect your chances of survival, so you might as well face death or a skraeling or a PO’ed Romulan or a cosmic horror or Screechy McTrigglyscruff with defiant laughter. You’ll enjoy your subsequent time in Valhalla better that way.
…
Question: lots of righties were driven nuts by the election of Obama. But… how many times did someone wearing an Obama shirt or a “Hope” hat or something face this level of balls-to-the-wall crazy?
Dec 302018
It’s not really “laugh out loud hilarious,” more “smirk slightly and then nod sadly.”
Dec 292018
Sikorsky is currently flying the S-97 “Raider” helicopter featuring the ABC (Advancing Blade Concept) rotor. ABC rotors look like conventional coaxial rotors, but differ in being structurally stiff and inflexible. The idea is that ABC rotors allow faster flight: in a conventional single-rotor helicopter, the faster airflow means that on one side of the rotor disk, the “advancing blade” slams into the air at a very high speed, potentially generating a lot of lift. But on the other side of the disk, the “trailing rotor,” which is moving aft at a speed not far off from the airflow, generates very little lift. This of course imbalances the aircraft and limits forward speed. The ABC system, by having coaxial rotors, make sure that there is always balanced lift. The S-97 is not the first helicopter that Sikorsky has built with ABC rotors; the S-69 flew in the 1970s, reaching a top speed of 260 knots. But it suffered from serious vibration issues and did not lead to a production aircraft. The S-97 seems to have fixed most of the issues, and it is hoped that a production contract may eventually come.
The ABC concept dates back *at* *least* 52 years. Below is an illustration from 1966. Interestingly this design more closely resembles – at least superficially – the S-97 than the S-67. The S-69 used two turbofan engines to provide forward thrust, while the S-97 used, like this illustration, a pusher propeller.
Dec 292018
35 years ago, Isaac Asimov was asked by the Star to predict the world of 2019. Here is what he wrote
Like the headline says, famed science fiction author Asimov was asked at the end of 1983 to predict waht 2019 wouldbe like. He touched on three main topics:
1: Nuclear war.
2: Computers
3: Space
As to #1, he didn;t have much to say other than, effectively, if it happens, we;ll be toast and all predictions go out the window.
As to #2, he correctly – and for 1983, unsurprisingly – predicted that computers would be very important, and that computerization would have led to substantial changes in the workforce. He also said this, which would by modern standards get him labeled a Nazi:
Those who can he retrained and re-educated will have been: those who can’t be will have been put to work at something useful, or where ruling groups are less wise, will have been supported by some sort of grudging welfare arrangement.
Claiming that nanny states are less wise?? OUTRAGE!!!
But where he sadly failed utterly was in predicting the future of spaceflight.
By 2019, we will be back on the moon in force. There will be on it not Americans only, but an international force of some size; and not to collect moon rocks only, but to establish a mining station that will process moon soil and take it to places in space where it can be smelted into metals, ceramics. glass and concrete — construction materials for the large structures that will be put in orbit about the Earth.
Yeah… no. This is of course what *should* have happened, but clearly it did not. He also suggested that solar power satellites would be under construction, manufacturing industries would be setting up in orbit and that there would be important space-based observatories. Of these, only the latter came close to truth, with the Hubble fundamentally expanding humanities view of the universe. But in 1983 the Hubble was well underway and was well know, so that was no great prognostication. Additionally, the Hubble is old and creaky, close to death, with no replacement due until the Webb telescope is launched… whenever the hell it gets launched.
By 2019, the first space settlement should be on the drawing boards; and may perhaps be under actual construction.
Sigh.
Predicting the future, even relatively short-term futures, is damned difficult to do even for the best science fiction authors (and even harder for people who don’t understand science, technology and history). I can remember 1983, and can assure you confidently that virtually *nobody* would have expected that well under a decade later the Soviet union would not only have disappeared, but done so *peacefully.* Surely nobody in 1983 would have been able to predict that credit card companies would be on the leading edge of shutting down the whole concept of free expression; that astrology and related bunk would be in ascendance; that after the triumph of the freemarket over communism,hat communism would be popular enough that advocates of it would achieve high office in the US; that we’d all carry semi-intelligent supercomputers in our pockets that allow worldwide low cost video telephony and provide instant access to the sum of human knowledge, and would somehow still lead humanity to a doom of dumbth.
Dec 292018
The most important thing to remember over the next few days is that season 2 of “The Orville” premieres Sunday night on Fox. Sadly, it does so after some sportsball game so expect it to be delayed… don’t just record “The Orville,” but also the shows after it.
The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article on the show. The original article is behind the WSJ paywall, but it can be read in its entirety HERE. The article is positive about the Orville, and has the most cromulent headline about this show ever: ” ‘The Orville’ and Its Vintage Vibe Fill The Void for Some ‘Star Trek’ Fans.”
“Th Orville” is one of the few bright spots to come out of the recently and justly decried wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Hollywood.
Season One is available now on DVD. Why the frak it’s not out on Blu Ray, I have no idea.
Dec 292018
The question was raised yesterday in the comments. And today, Hollywood answers.
Derrickson Deletes Hateful Christmas Tweets Attacking Trump Supporters
The “Derrickson” here is Scott Derrickson, the director of “Doctor Strange” and probable director of “Doctor Strange 2,” which I now no longer seem to have much interest in spending money on.
As the article points out:
There is a trend amongst people involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe to either be politically far to the left or have extreme hate for conservatives. James Gunn, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johannsson, Don Cheadle, Adam McKay, Brie Larson, Elizabeth Olsen, Dave Bautista, and the list goes on and on. It’s pretty clear that Disney tends to favor a single worldview when it comes to the talent that they hire.
They hate *me* (I’m neither a Trump supporter nor voter, but I suspect they’d throw me in the concentration camp if they knew of my appreciation for the AR-15). Why should I love them?
If you believe that Hollywood does not have a distinct leftist slant, I will, once again, repeat my very simple test that has so far gone unanswered: name three characters from the last, say, 20 years of major Hollywood movies and/or TV who are:
1: Republican politicians
2: The good guys
3: While retaining Republican/conservative politics.
This does not mean Republican characters who are heroes because they reject standard right-wing positions such as low taxes, small government, gun rights, anti-identity politics, etc. TV and movies are full to the brim with Democrat heroes, on up to virtually every fictional President you can find who is even remotely virtuous… but just *try* to find a Republican who’s not a villain. Just *try* to find a Libertarian *at* *all.*
Dec 282018
Seems like “Iron Sky: The Coming Race” is actually coming: