“From the Department of Whimsy Enforcement:” Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, North Korean edition
North Korea looks like a hell of a place.
Apr 112022
Apr 112022
Driverless taxis operate on certain streets in San Francisco during specific hours and weather conditions. But despite the fact that the cars have no human drivers, they are still subject to the laws of the road, including the need to drive with headlights at night. So the police are tasked with stopping these taxis if their headlights are out. But it seems the robots have different ideas about being pulled over…
Apr 112022
An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified government data reveal
It was small, only a foot and a half in diameter or so. But it impacted the atmosphere over Papua new Guinea moving at about 130,000 miles per hour. Sporty! At that speed, one kilogram of rock – or ice, or iron, or whatever – has about 1,688,688,236 Joules of kinetic energy. one kilogram of TNT has 4,184,000 Joules of chemical explosive energy, so that rock is 403 times more powerful than a conventional bomb by mass.
A one kiloton explosion would be produced by 2,481 kilograms of impactor, or about a car and a half.
Apr 112022
Checking out the “science” section on Google News brings up this headline:
*Science,* people. This is what “decolonized” science, stripped of “white supremacy” and “patriarchy” looks like: friggen’ horoscopes.
If you’re interested in astrology, you’re likely more than familiar with your Sun sign, which directly relates to your personality. Maybe your ‘scope-obsessed self is also well-versed in your Moon sign, which aligns with your emotions and moods.
Your Venus sign is something different altogether, although for most people, it can be the same sign as their Sun sign, or one of its neighboring signs, says Alice Alta, resident astrologer for the Futurio app. And as with any planetary sign, this one is determined by where Venus was in the sky at the time of your birth. To find your Venus sign, all you need is your birth date, time, and location to create your natal chart via an astrology app or website like CafeAstrology.com, explains Alta.
What is my Venus sign, and how does it impact me?
“Venus is the planet of love, beauty, harmony, money, material values,” she notes. So, Venus in the natal chart is responsible for the development of your sense of style and taste, determining your preferences in everything from clothes to romantic partners.
At its core, Venus is huge in helping to understand your personality and how you express yourself. It impacts how you show your desires, passions, and what’s important to you. It can also determine how you interact with others and the energy you give off in those interactions.
Oh my ᚠᚪᛣᚳᛁᚾᚷ Gawd.
Apr 112022
Well it *is* 2022, so disasters are to be expected.
Apr 112022
A recent ebay acquisition, this is a lithograph with a photo and color cutaway of the Vought ALVRJ demonstrator vehicle. The Advanced Low-Volume Ramjet was a program that ran from the late 1960s into the 1980’s with the goal of producing a ramjet engine for missile applications, such as air-to-air missiles and the like.
The artwork was scanned at 600 dpi and made available to above-$10 Patrons and Subscribers. 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. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.
Apr 102022
As a child of the 70s and 80’s, department stores and shopping malls means something different to me than they doubtless do to Millenials and Gen Z’ers. I am sufficiently non-stupid so as to not be shocked that things change… but still, there’s a sadness to watching things that used to be popular and successful turn into ghost towns. I guess it’s like seeing the last of 8-tracks or cathode ray tubes. Still: I’d trade the convenience of Amazon and the inexpensiveness of WalMart if it meant that the cultural madness of Twitter and TikTok and Facebook and Tumbler and the rest of them could also be swept away. Kids these days could do with actual socialization and the exercise that comes from mall-walking. Maybe there’d be less
“gender madness” if kids could actually see, in a social setting, their peers looking normal and reasonably healthy.
The list of functioning Sears stores here (2:02) is kinda astounding, given that there used to be 3,000 of the places. There are only 4 (*FOUR*) functioning K-Mart stores, soon to be three. 2022 will probably be the last year for both of these brands.
Bonus:
Apr 102022
A collection of videos showing the current state of COVID-theater in China. So much of it is so over-the-top that it is clear that the purpose is not, as claimed, to control the spread of the ChiCom Flu, but to simply dominate the people… and to let the people know they’re being dominated. Power, pure and simple, naked and unlimited. This sort of thing is entirely possible in the west… if we allow it. Canada and Australia have been China-lite… how long until they – or the US – try to equal the Chinese government?
Apr 102022
No joke about “disturbing video:”
Disturbing Video: China Is Taking Cats for Extermination Due to COVID — Dogs Too
Think twice before clicking. Scenes of members of Team Humanity being tortured and killed on an industrial scale by humans. As much as many of use *hate* the little monsters responsible for the assault on Buddy The Cat… here’s an entire government that deserves that ire.
Remember the old wisdom about “if someone will do that to an animal, they’ll do that to a human?” Yeah, well… these are ChiComs. They’ve *already* done this to tens of millions of humans, so this is hardly surprising. But it’s still… hmmm.
Once again: humans at our worst are a Cosmic Horror to animals, especially those who rely on us.
Apr 102022
I mean, if you had the technical capability to insert Elmo into “Dune,” you’d hardly *not* do that.