Jan 152022
 

To a certain limit of the definition of “flight,”

Once again, another flight test video where the audio is obscured, in this case by music. I fully imagine that this thing was brain-meltingly loud nearby, a result of the basic physics of high disc loading.

 Posted by at 1:52 pm
Jan 152022
 

When you are planning a move, it’s wise to know something about where you are moving to. What the taxes are like, what the weather is like, reliability of gas, electricity, phone, internet, public transport; all that stuff. And knowing if you are going to be regularly robbed, raped and murdered is something most people would want to know in advance, so they can plan accordingly. But is seems that having that information makes you a bad, bad, terabad person:

Trulia to drop neighborhood crime data from home listings, after Redfin speaks out against practice

“We believe that Redfin–and all real estate sites–should not show neighborhood crime data.”

I believe someone should develop some sort of app/add-on that automatically displays crime data when you pull up mapping or real estate websites. With appropriate warning based on the severity of the local criminality and incompetent governance. “WARNING WARING: The city has defunded their police. Do Not Approach. Do Not Invest.”

 Posted by at 1:39 pm
Jan 152022
 

I’m glad that there are people crazy enough to drive themselves towards and dangerously close to powerful tornadoes. The video and data they record is scientifically useful, as well as interesting and simply entertaining.

I’m glad I’m not one of those people. But we as a species are better off for their existence, however brief it may be.

 Posted by at 1:18 pm
Jan 142022
 

Crime city: Philadelphia police just published instructional guide on how to survive carjackings

Yet another major American city devolving rapidly to third world status.

 Posted by at 4:44 pm
Jan 142022
 

Somewhat to my surprise, I found the first three episodes of HBO’s “Peacemaker” series to be a blast. This series is set in the DC cinematic universe, and is a direct spinoff of last years “The Suicide Squad,” featuring John Cena’s “Peacemaker” character. In short, the guy is an unstable violent moron, willing to kill any number of random innocent people in order to achieve peace. The show is incredibly violent and gory, profane and lowbrow… and it’s friggen’ hilarious. The best character is probably Eagly, Peacemakers sidekick: an eagle.

The opening credits are a sight to behold.

 

Note: yes, the same John Cena who shills for the Chinese Communist Party, in a show created and directed by James Gunn, the same guy who cranked out a suspiciously large number of tweets that made light of kiddy diddlin’. So if that sort of thing modifies your desire to watch a show… well, Hollywood seems to be full of these types, so your options are limited. But Gunn is really quite good at making this sort of entertainment (witness “Guardians of the Galaxy”) and Cena is just damned charismatic, and wholly committed to the bit.

Also: something a lot of comic book reviewers/critics have noticed is that if a black woman appears in a comic book, there’s at least a 50-50 shot that she’s a lesbian. In “Peacemaker,” there are *two* black women in the main cast… and they’re *both* lesbians. Really racking up the diversity points.

Also also: a .50 AE Desert Eagle with a barrel *that* extended seems incredibly unwieldy. Still: want.

 Posted by at 4:23 pm
Jan 142022
 

Seems to me that there is an opportunity to develop locks on the containers that are hooked up to high voltage + high amperage systems, or explode, release chlorine, emit napalm… something. At the very least automated systems that detect looters and not only photograph them but lash out with hooked whips that take DNA samples. Those identified are put into databases and never again receive any assistance from the taxpayer. The same databases that Antifa insurrectionists and terrorists need to be on.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:51 pm
Jan 142022
 

New infections of Xi’s Disease are shooting upwards like a Falcon 9. This trend has been going on for right at about a month. It kinda-sorta looks like *maybe* the curve is starting to bend *slightly* in the direction of flattening, but unless it does so soon, the CDC will have to start digging up dead folks and importing foreigners to keep these numbers up. Soon there will be a million confirmed cases a day, and quite possibly more than that. At some point there won’t be more people to infect.

 

But actual deaths remain vaguely consistent, at ~1500 per day:

 

 

 

 Posted by at 9:28 am
Jan 142022
 

A few boxes of books finally showed up, shipped from Britain. Not as many as I’d planned on getting; with luck, one or two more boxes are simply working their way through the system slower than the others. UPDATE: the rest showed up. However, I can only make firm plans for the books I actually have on hand.

I plan on selling signed, numbered and dated copies for $55 each plus shipping (cheap in the US, but doubtless ridiculously expensive elsewhere… international postage is nuts these days). To sweeten the deal, these will all come with three 18X24 signed, numbered and dated prints of the B-47 and B-52.

To start off, I will auction off the first five copies. To sweeten *that* deal, numbers 3,4 and 5 will have a fourth 18X24 print… from the currently in-progress Book 3. Numbers 1 and 2 will have an additional 18X24, also from Book 3. The subject of Book 3 has not been made public yet, but I trust that it and the diagrams will be of considerable interest to anyone who has purchased “SR-71” and “B-47/B-52.”

The auction will be simple: send me your bid (in excess of $55) and the highest bid gets #1, second highest gets #2, and so on. Send your bid to scottlowther@up-ship.com before the end of the day Sunday.

After that I will sell off the other signed copies, starting with those who signed up. Hopefully more will arrive by that point, but for right now it looks like There will be a grand total of only 18 23 signed and numbered copies on the entire planet. So… who knows. Collectors items.

 Posted by at 1:57 am
Jan 142022
 

This is kinda remarkable… as much for the fact that it seems to have not been dealt with as for what it is. Maybe it’s untreatable, but you’d think that modern surgery and such could have at least kinda-sorta kept this in check. As it is, it looks like he will lose vision pretty soon unless something is done.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/1oj1rds26o

I don’t doubt that there are some massive medical bills here. But I also would bet a nickle that there are a lot of doctors who would fly across the planet to treat such problems among third worlders for free; you’d think that they’d be willing to do the same for an American in need. You’d think. But then… maybe there’s not much that can be done here. Shrug.

 Posted by at 1:00 am