Mercury Capsule Art

 art, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 312021
 

Two pieces of (presumably McDonnell Aircraft) artwork depicting the Mercury capsule:

These were procured from eBay thanks to the contributions of Patrons and subscribers. They have been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-02 APR Extras folder at Dropbox, and at 600 dpi directly to all patrons/subscribers at more than $10/month. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.



 Posted by at 10:12 pm

Bring the dead back to life with AI

 art, awesomeness, history, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 312021
 

Welllllll… sorta. Insofar as to take old film and photos and enhance them, making them seem almost contemporary.

This one turns old black and white photos into full color moving images. There are a bunch of “tells” that the final products aren’t really videos shot of the subjects; the process is far from perfect. But at first glance one or two might pass.

This one upscaled a 1939 film apparently shot at the New York World’s Fair of a bunch of people – mostly women – dancing (the “Lindy Hop,” it seems). Kinda surprising to see a racially mixed crowd like this, something that doesn’t really square with what we’re usually told.

I could see a market for this sort of thing for older folks, turning old photos of long dead loved ones into moving portraits.

 Posted by at 9:53 pm

Unemployed coal miner? Work with land mines.

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 312021
 

WTF, Kamala.

Will this be the new “learn to code?” If your job has just gone away, taking decades of experience and expertise down the drain, just work on “reclaiming abandoned land mines.” Because, sure, digging coal out of the ground gives you the skill sets to dig generations-old explosive booby traps out of the ground on the far side of the planet.

Unless, of course, she’s planning on planting millions of land mines around government facilities to prevent those dirty, dirty “citizens” from getting too close, and she’ll need an army of depressed expendables to deal with them.

Your next President, people. All sales are final.

 Posted by at 7:07 pm

House bill 127

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 302021
 

This bill, the “Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act’’ would make illegal any ammunition .50 caliber or greater. This would mean that your .50 BMG rifle and your .50 Action Express pistol would now be a Federal crime. To own such ammunition would *mandate* a minimum 10 year prison sentence. (there does not seem to be an exception or 12 gauge deer slugs, nor for black powder musket balls) Also: the bill would require that *all* firearms be registered with the government within three months.

REQUIRED INFORMATION.—Under the firearm registration system, the owner of a firearm shall transmit to the Bureau— ‘‘(A) the make, model, and serial number of the firearm, the identity of the owner of the firearm, the date the firearm was acquired by the owner, and where the firearm is or will be stored;

This information – who you are, what guns you own, and where you store them – would be kept in a database. Which, interestingly… “The Attorney General shall make the contents of the database accessible to all members of the public, all Federal, State, and local law enforcement authorities, all branches of the United States Armed Forces, and all State and local governments, as defined by the Bureau. “

Huh. Well, looky here: a handy-dandy database of stealable firearms and where they’re stored, available to all criminals.

What’s more: in order to possess a firearm, you will need a license. In order to get a license, you will need to pass a background check, a psychological evaluation and a training course… all at your expense, of course, as well as having special insurance policies ($800). If your firearm is “military style,” the training course will be TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. If you are depressed by this, that’s considered a psychological condition that will preclude you from obtaining a license to keep your guns. it will be illegal for you to give a gun to a friend or family member… or even *ammunition,* unless you inform the Attorney General of that transfer. Failure to do so  leads to a $75,000 fine and 15 to 25 years in prison. Owning a standard capacity magazine will now be illegal, with fines of $50,000 to $100,000 and prison terms of 10 to 20 years.

Will this bill become law? Even with the current makeup of Congress and the White House, I have doubts. But the fact that such a bill can make it as far as it has speaks ill of the intentions of those behind it. The bills sponsor, Sheila Jackson-Lee, is one of the least honest and least intelligent people to have ever occupied a seat in the US House, and that’s really saying something.

You can track the progress of this blatantly unconstitutional bill here (there is a *CITATION* *NEEDED* estimate of 3% for this bill passing):

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr127

Lexington and Concord come to mind.

 Posted by at 2:56 pm

A hell of a sight to see

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 292021
 

SpaceX has been trying to launch Starship serial number 9 for a few days now, with the efforts being held up by FAA regulatory approval. This is of course bad… the only thing worse for a world-changing advance in technology than getting the engineering wrong is to have either incompetent or malignant government bureaucrats involved.

Still… while SN9 is awaiting launch, SN10 has been moved to the pad. Behold:

Someday – probably not during this Presidential Administration, but perhaps during the administration of President Cruz, with NASA overseen by VP Shapiro – we might see whole rows of these things lined up ready to go, some sitting on Superheavies to lob large payloads into orbit, some sitting by themselves for long range suborbital flights or even, just barely, SSTO quick reaction flights. Some will be in NASA colors, some in USSF markings; there will be FedEx and UPS vehicles for intercontinental package transport and for transport to LEO, GEO and the Lunar bases. Maybe even one in Space Force One colors to take the President to visit American bases, cities and industrial exploitation facilities on the Moon and Lagrange points.

Sigh…

 

 

 Posted by at 4:58 pm

Space Settlement books

 art, books, history, Hmm..., projects, rockets, science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 292021
 

Books that I can confidently state should be owned (because I own them):

Space Resources and Space Settlements

Space Settlements: A Design Study

The High Frontier: Human Colonies In Space

The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer’s Guide to Interstellar Travel

Colonies in Space: A Comprehensive and Factual Account of the Prospects for Human Colonization of Space


– – – – – – – – – – –

Books that look promising, but that I don’t have firsthand experience with:

Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets

Space 2.0: How Private Spaceflight, a Resurgent NASA, and International Partners are Creating a New Space Age

Space Settlements 

MARS COLONIES: Plans for Settling the Red Planet

And then… there’s this:

Designing and Building Space Colonies: A Blueprint for the Future

Looks good. But then comes the authors bio: “Martin’s interest in the Paranormal, Spirituality, and much more goes back to his childhood. He has had many paranormal experiences and has been a student of Eastern Philosophies and Meditation for 35 years. Seeking Enlightenment; he knows that we are already all Enlightened. We just have to realize this deeply. His books are expressions of his creativity to help others understand what he has internalized through study, experience, and membership in different societies.” Ummmm……

 Posted by at 3:58 pm

Why do people never learn?

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 292021
 

California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is awful. Rather than posting small snippets, just read this… and wonder just how long California has before it devolves into full scale race war.

California Is Cleansing Jews From History

It is full not only of all the racism and historical revisionism we’ve come to expect from the far left in recent years, but blatant anti-semitism and outright Marxism. No parent should allow their children to be subjected to this rubbish.

Of course California is not alone in using the educational system to twist and ruin the minds of children. Take a look at this monstrosity from Seattle:

SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS K-12 Math Ethnic Studies Framework (20.08.2019)

It’s child abuse, plain and simple. Some people shriek that YouTube and Parler and Gab and such lead to radicalization. No, the schools do an adequate job of that.

 Posted by at 10:08 am
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