The Farthest Star

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, science  No Responses »
Mar 312022
 

Hubble spots most distant single star ever seen, at a record distance of 28 billion lightyears

The star had (a very long time ago) a mass something like 500 times that of the sun. it was only visible thanks to gravitational lensing; the galaxy it occupied was smeared into a long arc due to an intervening mass. The star of course only appears as a single pixel (likely less than that); a fair question is “how can they tell it’s a single star rather than a small galaxy or cluster?” The star has a simple spectrum, where a number of stars would have a much more complex spectrum.

A second valid question: “How can something be 28 billion lightyears away if the universe is 13 or so billion years old?” The complication is that the Universe has been expanding for all of those 13 billion years; the furthest visible extents are expanding at just about the speed of light. The actual *things* are not moving at the speed of light… space itself is expanding. The universe *beyond* what’s visible is expanding at *beyond* the speed of light. This video helps explain this feature of the universe.

The star has been named “Earendel,” the Old English word for “morning star.” To compare with the character of Eärendil  from the Silmarillion.

 Posted by at 1:20 am

Compass Cope/B-58A

 aircraft, art, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, Patreon, projects  No Responses »
Mar 302022
 

The two aircraft are unrelated, apart from the fact that I have uploaded scans of each to the 2022-03 APR Extras folder on Dropbox for $4 and up patrons/Subscribers. The first is a brief magazine writeup showing illustrations of the Boeing and Ryan designs for the Compass Cope unmanned recon vehicles from the early 1970s; both of these would end up actually being built, though not quite in the configurations shown in the concept art. The second is a Convair inboard profile/plan view of the B-58A bomber, because why not.

The full-rez scans are, again, available to $4 and pup Patrons/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with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.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.



 

 

 Posted by at 10:35 am

The wisest thing I’ve ever heard in a movie trailer

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., science fiction, weapons, wisdom, youtube  No Responses »
Mar 292022
 

“Dual” is a forthcoming movie with a  simple premise; in the future if you are dying you can get a clone made to replace you (I presume there’s some memory copy-transference thingamabobber involved at some point). But if, after the clone is up and running, you turn out to *not* be dying (personally I’d expect a medical system able to make an adult clone of you with your memories and personalities would be much better at not only wiping out terminal illnesses, but being certain about who is actually terminal), then you and your clone have to fight to the death, because it would be ridiculous to have two of you running around. So, ok, the plot is that a woman gets a clone made, finds out she’s not dying, and now has one year to get ready for arena combat. She gets a trainer. The trainer sez the second smartest thing you’ll read today:

“Always use the gun if it’s an option.”

To which she replies: “I find guns to be boring and overused.”

Which is countered with the smartest thing you’ll read today: “If it’s the difference between life and death it’s ok to be boring.”

 

 Posted by at 4:19 pm

Leave no man behind. Except these two, they suck.

 AARRRGH, Crazy, news, politics, russian empire, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 292022
 

Russian trucks try to get the hell out of Dodge. Two of the soldiers get left. Womp womp.

YouTube says this video is age restricted.  Not sure why… no death or destruction on display, just military incompetence or panic. I suppose if I was a Russian truck driver in Ukraine and I found out there was a drone looking down at me, I’d want to unass ASAP too. But, damn, son.

 Posted by at 12:25 pm

I support this rant

 art, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., humor, news, politics, wisdom, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 282022
 

Doomcock goes off about Will Smith’s coarsening of culture and suppression of speech:

There remains doubt over whether the slap was real. Both of those involved are actors, both have had action movie roles; both could doubtless have faked this successfully. But it *looked* real… looked real enough that the intent was to make it seem real. If it had been done as a joke, it would have come off as a joke, but it comes off as exactly what it seems. But real or not, the intent was to show that if you say the wrong thing, it is valid for someone to try to physically harm you. This is a Bad Message, but it’s one that many extremists in society today can get behind. This incident, if Will Smith goes unpunished (as it seems he will), can only lead to more violence against not just standard comedians, but especially those who traffic in political humor.

At least there will be some good jokes to come from this:

 

 

 Posted by at 5:28 pm

Rotational Research Facility

 drawings, history, Hmm..., science, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 282022
 

A few months ago I was contacted via email by someone looking for information on the North American Aviation “Rotational Research Facility” built in the 1960’s. This was – kinda – an “artificial gravity space station” built on the ground, designed for long duration human testing. Obviously it would not test human reactions to fractional-G environments, since it started at 1 G and went up from there, but it would test responses to Coriolis effects and the like. When I was contacted, I had nothing on it other than a vague recollection of the concept. Thanks to eBay I recently acquired a book that had a short description of the facility, from before it was built. If that was *you* who asked about it, let me know. If it wasn’t you, but you have more information on it, let me know. Google turns up very little on the RRF apart from a few newspaper articles. The whole thing seems to have been memory-holed; perhaps the name changed before it was built.

 Posted by at 4:20 pm

“Call Russia”

 news, politics, russian empire, youtube  No Responses »
Mar 282022
 

Legacy socialist Putin has control over the media and the narrative in Russia. But it seems he has not yet shut down the international phone system; you can still call Russian numbers from outside. So… it seems there are people cold-calling Russians to talk to them about what Russia is doing in Ukraine. It’s an interesting idea, though in order to have much impact they’d probably need to call *millions* of Russians, which would require hundreds of thousands of Russian speakers willing to do this sort of thing. it would be rather soul-crushing to try to talk to a bunch of people who have been to one degree or another brainwashed by the government media. Like trying to talk down an SJW or Antifa. Ugh.

 Posted by at 12:18 am

Will Smith does his best…

 Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., news, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 272022
 

… to keep the Oscars weird. This *seems* like it’s an actual example of him losing his cool and committing assault live on TV. It looks kinda like a scripted joke until he gets back to his seat and starts yelling FCC-unapproved profanities at Chris Rock. The problem seems to be that Rock made a joke about Jada Smith being bald, which is not a fashion choice but a medical issue and Will Smith – who initially laughed at the joke – apparently decided to leap to violence.

Ricky Gervais wasn’t the host, so I didn’t care to watch the Oscars (honestly… who does anymore?). But the YouTube algorithm decided that I needed to see this, so, so do you.

 Posted by at 10:40 pm

This seems a bit much

 aircraft, art, blather, Crazy, eBay, history, Hmm..., projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 272022
 

I have long bemoaned the fact that interesting aerospace history stuff sometimes sells on eBay at painfully high prices and sometimes even to people who aren’t me (the outrage of it all). Such is the case with this listing:

Vintage NASA Concept Art Frank DiPietro Martin Marietta SV-5D PRIME Lifting Body

Two nice vintage lithographs… one of the Martin SV-5D (AKA, X-23) subscale lifting body, and one of the NASA-Langley HL-10 (an early concept with a raised cockpit, possibly also a Martin interpretation). The initial bid price for these was $100; after a number of recent eBay expenditures, that was more than I was willing to go for. So it’s just as well that the final selling price was $384, which seems really, really high. Perhaps the bidders thought that these were the original paintings? Or perhaps the market for lithographs has skyrocketed.

Well, I guess it’s time that I unload some stuff. Not that I necessarily want to, but the bills lately…. uuuuugh. I recently saw a modestly cruddy Convair F-106 joystick go for well over $700. Well, guess what I have: a *really* *nice* F-106 joystick. Anybody want to bribe me before I put it on eBay? If so, send me an email with your insanely generous offer…

 Posted by at 10:23 pm

Well, that’s college paid for

 awesomeness, Crazy, news, youtube  No Responses »
Mar 272022
 

Turns out the driver of that truck that got rolled and spun by a tornado a week or so back is just a kid. If he plays his cards right, that old truck could prove a windfall.

Chevy wisely gave him a brand new truck and fifteen grand. The piece didn’t say what happened to the old truck, but I remain convinced that it could do well at auction.

 Posted by at 9:57 pm
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