Yes, there are practical applications here for agricultural planning, water engineering, etc. But let’s face it: if this was affordable, this sort of thing would be used far more by people designing their own worlds for role playing games, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.
Responsive digital effects superimposed onto this augmented reality sandbox creating an interactive tool for geoscience
e.g understanding the effects of rain flows, as virtual water moves across the landscape in accordance with the laws of motion pic.twitter.com/Nbe1IS510P
An interesting CGI video depicting three sizes of folding rotor tiltrotor High Speed VTOL from Bell. The concept is not new; actually building and flying one, though, would be. The designs shown are also not new; Bell has been floating them for a few years at least since late 2021.
Sir Sic (the Social Inequality Crusader) mocks a “college professor” who claims to have a mechanical engineering degree and who claims that rockets cannot work in a vacuum. Because he not only doesn’t understand basic science, he thinks it’s all a conspiracy.
The original video seems to date from quite some time ago; the version I found was uploaded to YouTube in 2017, and was apparently in existence some time prior to that. Unfortunately, no information is given about who this guy is, and whether he’s *actually* a college professor. Given the accent, he’s clearly not a westerner… which is a relief. There are already quite enough shrieking morons in American academia. And while I’m appalled at anyone claiming to be an engineer talking uneducated and factually wrong smack about science, it’s much less offensive to me if they are from a competing or even adversarial land. However, since he’s speaking *English,* it’s not impossible that he’s an enemy agent come to the US in order to dumb down American college students.
Another possibility is that he not only knows he’s full of BS, he’s actually trolling. Perhaps his purpose is to confuse the kiddies, and then get them to correct him. Teach them critical thinking and skepticism. Teach them to not trust The Man, but instead to apply the lessons of science and arrive at the facts. However, “he’s a moron” is a hell of a lot simpler explanation.
The difficulty with this guys world view is that he lives in a world where rockets exist in space and perform just fine. Of course the conspiracy theorist would argue that that’s all just a scam; there are no space rockets. But then the counter to *that* is “go outside at night and look up. You’ll see satellites.” And doubtless there are terribly clever and fundamentally stupid counters to *that.* Robert Goddard encountered just this sort of dumbassery more than a century ago when the New York Times mocked him for claiming that rockets would work in a vacuum. Not only did he have the math behind him, he actually demonstrated it. On ground level, by firing a rocket in a vacuum “track.” Nothing stopping people from replicating this today. A long length of plexiglas or polycarbonate clear pipe, with a model rocket motor at one end, pumped down to very low pressure, then fire off the rocket and watch it zip down the tube. Do that a couple times, both with vacuum and with air pressure. It’s a safe bet the rockets in vacuum will move faster.
This “professor” is an exemplar of “other ways of knowing.” I fully support his ambitions… for other countries.
The finding is pretty obvious, as banning common firearms and standard magazines is *incandescently* unconstitutional. But what seems to be the case now is that, for the moment, the law is not in effect *state* *wide.* MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA….
The New York Times “reports” that black people are having trouble riding horses because they are having difficulty finding helmets:
For Black equestrians with natural hair, finding a helmet that fits can be virtually impossible –– another barrier to inclusion in a sport that remains overwhelmingly white. Helmet companies say there isn’t a simple fix. https://t.co/hhYIBqZV8Bpic.twitter.com/Io9myQ4wKJ
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t there black people in the Army, Marines, Air Force? Pretty sure they wear helmets there. Don’t black people ride bicycles and motorcycles? Again, they’ve been wearing helmets for decades. Probably even been black skaters and skateboarders, who often seem to wear helmets. How is this a problem?
I’m not a fan of Dungeons & Dragons. Some friends tried to get me to play it going on 40 years ago, and I just didn’t get it (the FASA Star Trek Starship Combat game, though? I was all about that). So I don’t know the lore, settings, characters, etc. But I *do* know that the majority of fans appear to be males. D&D seems to share a lot of the *feel* of Lord of the Rings, which is also popular more among males. And while the males may tend towards the nerdy, the appreciation is for traditional masculine roles… heroes, barbarians, warriors, wizards. Weaklings are not well appreciated in that sort of world view. Even the supposedly week Hobbits turned out to have endless wells of strength and courage and, when called for, badassery.
The male characters, once again, apparently take a back seat to the females, and are depicted as weak and ineffectual. D&D is a role playing game. The players adopt roles… roles that they *want* to play. Characters they’d probably like to *be.* How many D&D players – the presumed base for the movie – want to see themselves as incompetent, weak, lazy, cowardly, useless? So… who is this movie supposed to appeal to?
I was unlikely to see this movie before reading this. “Unlikely” has transitioned to “statistically insignificant chance.”
The episode where a stolen car speeds through an intersection, hits another car, slams into a building (crushing a pedestrian in the process), which then collapses on both cars.
Hmm. Another case of a YouTube video that won’t auto-embed. Oh well, there’s this:
#Baltimore *potentially disturbing* The Maryland Office of the Attorney General has released street camera video and bodycam footage from a fatal police pursuit turned crash/collapse; where a fleeing suspect crashed into a building causing a significant collapse on February 8th. pic.twitter.com/XEvphHyNlb
