Using outrage to take over cultural icons

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Hmm..., politics, wisdom, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 102019
 

Sane people know that the “OK” hand sign is innocuous. Crazy people are afraid that it’s a white power gesture. And so what happens? The crazy people have made it so that only white supremacists – or at least those *pretending* to be white supremacists in order to troll the normies – can use the “OK” sign.

As Sargon says in the video below, the 4chan project that turned “OK” into a white power symbol was remarkably successful… and instructive for future programs. The thing trolls will do now is to find popular symbols that Progressives are fond of and “corrupt” them into racist symbols, and the progressives will abandon them. Perhaps… Che shirts? The letters “AOC?” Bernie Sanders?

Progressives have certainly done this for their own ends… turning Star Wars and Star Trek into bastardized shallow shadows of their former selves in order to push whackadoodle agenda. Turnabout is fair play.

 Posted by at 5:27 pm

So now we’ve seen a black hole

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, science  No Responses »
Apr 102019
 

Hurray for humanity. At the same time the lesser, darker sides of our natures are being expressed in superstition and fearmongering, the better STEM majors of our natures are showing us the universe in a detail never before imagined. Gentlemen… behold:

Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole

If you are a little disappointed in the resolution, bear in mind that this is the supermassive (6.5 *billion* solar mass) black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy 55 *million* light years away. The glowing ring is the accretion disk around the hole… a disk of gas and dust spinning around the holes equatorial plane, raised to incandescence from friction and tidal forces. The reason why the disk isn’t uniform around the hole? Actually, it is. But some of the disk is rotating towards us; some rotating away from us. And the rotation speed approaches the speed of light. Consequently, the light from the part of the disk rotating towards us is blue-shifted in frequency and increased in power; the light from the side of the disk rotating away from us is red shifted down in frequency and vastly reduced in apparent power.

This image was captured via radio telescope interferometry, creating a telescope with roughly the effective diameter of the Earth. The scopes ran at a wavelength of 1.3mm, into the microwaves, not visible light.

The central dark region is the “shadow” of the black hole, about 2.5 times the size of the actual event horizon, which is about 40 *billion* kilometers in diameter (something like 267 astronomical units… substantially larger than the solar system). The shadow is a region darkened by the gravity of the hole bending light away from reaching us. So just eyeballing it, if the even horizon is 40 billion km in diameter and the shadow is 2.5 times bigger, and the glowing portion of the accretion disk is 4 or maybe 5 time bigger than that… then the glowing accretion disk is something along the lines of 500 billion km in diameter.

 Posted by at 11:10 am

Well, not with THAT attitude

 AARRRGH, Gah., I'm from the government, Meh., news, politics, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 092019
 

With people like this in charge, how did the US ever accomplish anything?

Astronauts on the Moon in 2024? US Can’t Do It Alone, NASA Chief Says

I’m on record being skeptical of the US getting men back onto the moon by 2024. But not because we’d need to hook up with a bunch of foreign powers to do it… but because the sluggish nature of people like this.

Make it a contest that pays real winnings to make real progress and cuts through the red tape. We’d get there *early.*

 Posted by at 11:06 pm

The stupid, it burns

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., religion, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 092019
 

AAAAAARRRRGH

Pluto and the Young Solar System

The outer solar system continues to confirm the biblical timescale. When the New Horizons spacecraft flew past the Pluto system in July 2015, its findings challenged secular expectations. In the standard old-universe model, Pluto formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Yet, New Horizons found evidence of a geologically “youthful” surface for both Pluto and its largest moon Charon. A recent study examining the sparse cratering on these worlds provides even additional evidence of their biblical age of a few thousand years.

This from the “Biblical Science Institute.” The basic claim is that since Pluto is relatively uncratered compared to what a geologically inactive solid rock aught to be, then clearly it’s actually brand-spankin’ new, only a few thousand years off of the assembly line. The fact that the surface of Pluto is composed of solidified gases that only need to be warmed *slightly* to become *actual* gases, and that it is in exceedingly close orbit with the very similarly sized moon Charon, driving tidal pumping of the interior of the world thus generating internal heat… why, that’s no never mind to these geniuses.

Is it any wonder that people don’t vaccinate their children, try to raise their cats as vegans, believe the Earth is flat?

 Posted by at 5:35 pm

Falcon 9 Heavy to fly tomorrow

 art, awesomeness, news, rockets, youtube  No Responses »
Apr 092019
 

Giggity:

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket set for first commercial launch. Here’s how to watch it live online.

It will, with luck, orbit the Saudi Arabsat 6A communications satellite. It was originally meant to launch today, but weather put things off a day. The SpaceX YouTube channel will carry the launch live sometime between 6:35Pm and 8:30 PM Eastern time: Sometime Thursday. Wednesday launch scrubbed due to winds.

https://www.youtube.com/user/spacexchannel/

Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters will attempt to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 and 2 (LZ-1 and LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Falcon Heavy’s center core will attempt to land on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

 

 Posted by at 3:40 pm

What We Left Behind

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Apr 092019
 

Sigh. I miss Star Trek. At least there’s “The Orville.” Hopefully it’ll get renewed, but Fox – now owned by Disney – is sure taking its sweet time.

The Deep space Nine documentary “What We left Behind” is hitting theaters for a grand total of one day.

 

 Posted by at 3:25 pm

Dem 2020 field now includes the guy who wants to kill you

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Hmm..., Meh., news, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 092019
 

California Rep Eric Swalell is entrant number 18 in the Democrat Presidential candidacy extravaganza. If you think the name is familiar, it may be because I’ve posted about him before. Back in November he threatened the use of nuclear weapons against American citizens who refuse to knuckle under to his gun-grabbing ways. This, ladies and gentlemen, is your modern Democratic Party.

Unsurprisingly, Obergunbanfuhrer Swalwell plans on focusing his plans for the Presidency on gun control “for the children.” This is a platform based on BS and fearmongering; the facts about gun violence and children are available here:

Eric Swalwell Claims Kids Live In A Bullet-Riddled Dystopia. The Opposite Is True

In other news, noted poor guy Socialist Bernie Sanders is a stinking hypocritical millionaire.

 Posted by at 3:15 pm

Branding

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Hmm..., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 092019
 

Capitalism is great. Unlike socialism and related economic systems such as mercantilism, fascism and communism, capitalism is capable of providing the vast majority of the populace with a better life while making a lot of people quite wealthy. I love capitalism, I’m just no damn good at it (hey, I love good music, too, but you don’t want to hear me sing). For example, I *never* would have thought of this:

This Korean Company You Never Heard Of Has Revolutionized Badge Engineering

The company Brenthon (now THERE is a Korean name if I ever heard one) is a car company. But here’s the trick: they don’t make cars. They don’t even modify cars. What do they sell? They sell their logos, which you can apply to Kias and Hyundais and turn them into “Brenthon” cars.

This to me does not make sense. What possible point would there be to simply swap out the “Kia” badge on you car for a “Brenthon” badge? I don’t get it. But apparently enough people *do* get it so that the business case made sense to *somebody.*

 Posted by at 2:52 pm

Restored XP-82 in flight

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, history, youtube  No Responses »
Apr 082019
 

Now THIS is a thing of beauty:

Someday, doubtless far after I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, and assuming that western civilization has continued and hasn’t collapsed due to plagues of virii,bacteria, fungi, SJWs, invaders, etc., there will be something like the replicators of Star Trek. And some day, you’ll be able to download an XP-82 file and have it print you off one, all shiny and chrome, that you can fly away that very day.

 Posted by at 5:58 pm
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