May 122022
May 122022
Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy
The structure imaged above is about the size of the orbit of Mercury. That sounds pretty big… but given the distance to the center of the galaxy, it’s about the same apparent size as a donut on the surface of the moon. Take THAT, “other ways of knowing.”
An earlier video showing stars orbiting around the supermassive black hole. I remain impressed that we can watch stars move from this great distance. The James Webb Space telescope should return some even better footage in the years to come.
May 122022
Well, here’s another “this is why we can’t have nice things” -ism that Current Year has gifted us:
In short: Women who think they’re pretty, pretending to be stupid and being stupid as a result and bringing everything else down with them.
Playing up stupidity as a way to get out of responsibility is no better than pretending to be a cripple to get out of responsibility. It’s a a scam.
May 112022
*WOW.* Not a fun day to be a tanker.
Chinese TV crew captures Russian tank turret going rocketing into the sky. A design flaw in many Russian tanks is that the ammo store is directly underneath the turret – if a hit detonates it, the turret goes straight up, sometimes reaching extremely impressive heights, like here pic.twitter.com/Flli1DK4t3
— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) May 11, 2022
May 112022
Before Star Trek, I was a fan of the 1950’s run of “Tom Swift jr.” books back when I was in grade school. Those were some of the first books I read, kicking off a love of science fiction literature that has lasted for more than forty -five years. The whole idea of A Kid Like Me being a scientific/engineering genius appealed, and undoubtedly played some role in my becoming an aerospace engineer. So just imagine how thrilled I was when I saw this trailer for an Extra Special version of Tom Swift soon to premier as a series on the CW:
I *defy* anyone who read the 1950’s run of Tom Swift to suggest with a straight face that this has any resemblance beyond the name and the concept of “genius inventor.”
Is there any intellectual property that modern Hollywood *can’t* or *won’t* turn into crap? The existence of this series does not negate the original books, of course… but the existence of *this* series negates the possibility of the good series that *could* have been made.
May 112022
When you over-use and abuse a derogatory word, it loses it’s sting or outright changes its meaning. Remember when “Nazi” used to mean something inherently bad? Now, thanks to Antifa and Putin, it simply means “anyone who disagrees with my insane rants.” The same will happen with “racist.”
May 102022
One of the problems I harped on about Spinlaunch previously was the fact that their projectile tumbled, which is of course a very bad thing. They seem to be getting a handle on that issue.
May 102022
It is possible that some writer on “Strange New Worlds” might have slipped in some non-leftist messaging. Personally I believe that the more likely explanation is that this was meant to smear the right, but due to the current-day Star Trek writers being lazy and none too bright, they screwed it up.
In short: in the premier episode of SNW, Captain Pike uses some January 6 footage to show how Earth walked into World War III, with the protests leading to the Eugenics Wars, and then to WWIII. Buuuuuuuut… Pike referred to the Jan 6 footage as a “fight for freedom.”
Hmmm. Pike’s not wrong there.
Another good point: “That’s why I watch a show set in the future, to watch video from last year.”
May 102022
This particular form of video meme has been around for a while, but it is sometimes interesting. The song “Little Dark Age” by MGMT, often slowed down somewhat, is played against a series of images all to a particular theme, such as “America” or “Space Exploration.” Often the videos start with images or video clips from the present that show some of the bad aspects of the topic, depressing stuff such as Antifa and Joe Biden and “Hamilton” for the “America” theme, then follow it with uplifting historical images. The point, it seems, to be to contrast the current-day insistence of many to view things only in the worst possible light with a much better view of the topic. A lot of these videos are lame, but the better ones have an evocative mix of despair and hope.
Some vary the style up by ditching the Black Pill content at the beginning and just use a vast number of historical images to tell a story. This one, for instance, tells the story of Western Civilization and somehow got itself “age restricted,” even though there’s nothing in there that seems to merit it… looks more like some algorithm decided that “western civilization = bad.”
May 102022
A video taken by Ukrainian forces after taking a formerly Russian-held position, showing a good reason why the Russian military seems so incompetent: instead of loading their positions with militarily useful equipment, they burdened themselves with loot. And not even *good* loot… not gold and diamonds and Lugers and such, but washing machines. The fact that these soldiers think hauling pilfered home appliances – and big ones – around an entire *war* makes any kind of sense says a lot about how things are back home in Russia. In a country where the Dear Leader has himself yachts the size of warships that cost as much as space programs, apparently the average schmoe doesn’t have the sort of mundane normal stuff that people in the west take for granted. So they’re stealing it from Ukraine.
Seems the Russian soldiers are pointing their guns in the wrong direction.
— Gosi (@gosi1984) May 10, 2022