Behold: Books!

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, Book X, books, drawings, history, new products, projects  No Responses »
Jan 132022
 

Yesterday some boxes from Britain showed up with some copies of my new book:

I will be selling these as signed copies for $55 plus postage. My plan at this time is to sell a very limited number (I currently have a grand total of 18 copies on hand; I have hopes for a *few* more to show up) with three 18X24 prints. all singed and numbered. However, fiver copies, #’s 1 through 5, will be auctioned: the idea is that the highest bid gets #1, second highest gets #2, etc. As a bonus, #’s 3,4,5 will get one extra 18X24, which will be a diagram from the currently in-progress Book 3. #’s 1 and 2 will get *two* prints from Book 3. Pretty sure that these extra diagrams will be of considerable interest to anyone who bought my SR-71 book and the B-47/B-52 book. I will contact the list of folks who signed on in a day or two.

If you want to just go ahead and buy a regular copy, it’s available from Mortons in Britain and, in a few days, from Amazon.

 Posted by at 10:35 am

Barrage balloon diagrams: 1

 aircraft, art, drawings, history  No Responses »
Jan 132022
 

A few days ago a series of auctions for 1940’s (mostly Goodyear) blimp and barrage balloon diagrams ended on eBay. I tried to get them all, but got outbid on all but one. Nevertheless, the photos posted to eBay might be of interest to some folks.

 

 Posted by at 10:17 am

Translating English into English

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., I'm from the government, news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 122022
 

When I lived in Utah I’d occasionally go on trips throughout the southwest. Far from civilization, radio stations would fade out and sometimes the only stations that came in were native American language stations… Navajo and such like. It was always interesting to listen to those for a bit; you could often figure out roughly what they were discussing because their conversations were so heavily laden with English loan-words. A lot of those folks half a limited grasp of English; this is a category of “person who lives within the confines of the United States” that I don’t have a problem with them not learning English or assimilating into American culture. It’s probably not *wise* for them to not assimilate; it leaves them on the outside. But in their case, I see no ethical or moral problem for them choosing to be on the outside, since the outside kinda came up and swallowed them.

A similar situation, I imagine, exists in Australia with the Aborigines. They have their own languages and a lot doubtless don’t understand English. So it makes sense for Important Government Messages to be translated for them. But *this* message from Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan about the importance of getting vaccinated… I have to question the utility of the translation.

 Posted by at 10:44 pm

The video of an orangutan you didn’t know you needed: UPDATED

 art, awesomeness, critters, history, humor, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 122022
 

UPDATE: Well, poop. looks like the video got yoinked. My guess is that it was removed for copyright reasons due to the use of the Jam Hammer music.

– – –

More specifically, the video of a seriously obese orangutan driving a golf cart set to Jan Hammer music from “Miami Vice.” Truly, the 80’s were a magical time.

 

PS: it would be my guess that the golf cart has secondary controls, especially as you can briefly glimpse a human in the passenger seat.

 Posted by at 3:21 pm

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Special Edition in 4k

 art, awesomeness, news, science fiction  No Responses »
Jan 122022
 

ST:TMP was a flawed movie, but it’s still quite good. It is often slower than dirt and some of the visual effects were pretty bad (a few of the matte paintings, especially closeups of the upper side of the saucer section near the end of the movie, were criminally incompetent). Fortunately, in 2001 the director was miraculously given the time and money to do a “Directors Special Edition” that recut things a bit and added all-new modern CG effects shots. The result was a movie that was quite a bit of an improvement over the theatrical cut. Over time, though, a serious problem arose: the special edition was shot only at DVD resolution.

Huzzah! They spent the money to create all those new scenes *again,* this time in 4K resolution, for release sometime in early 2022.

 

 

 Posted by at 1:59 am

Gene-edited pig heart: get yours now

 awesomeness, blather, critters, Hmm..., news, science, science fiction  No Responses »
Jan 102022
 

First-ever heart transplant from gene-edited pig offers hope for thousands in need of organs

The pig was genegineered to have a heart that would not be rejected by a human immune system, so that human blood would not coagulate within it, and so that the pig would not grow too big (at one year old it was 240 pounds, when otherwise it would have been about 450 pounds).

That’s cool and all, but I imagine that the technique that will eventually win in the future will be hearts (and other organs) cloned from the patient themselves, with whatever genetic modifications to prevent whatever the problem was in the first place. At first that will probably mean organs grown in machines (perhaps even 3D printed), but someday I suspect that your new heart might well be grown in place. Exactly *how* that will happen, I don’t know: maybe the new heart grows next to the old one, starting small and gradually taking it’s place, so for a while you have two beating hearts. Or maybe the new cloned heart will grow *in* the old one… a few scattered new, modified cells seeded throughout the old damaged heart, consuming and replacing the old heart like The Thing, so that it looks like the heart is rapidly repairing itself when in fact it’s being repalced. In the end such a therapy will be of no greater drama than getting a shot of antibiotics today, but the years, perhaps decades, spent perfecting it will doubtless have some exciting failures and screwups.

 Posted by at 10:49 pm

This will be a godsend to those trying to avoid detection

 art, awesomeness, science  No Responses »
Jan 102022
 

Not quite a cloaking device, but pretty handy for those making an escape: a car that can change colors on command. From this short clip, it seems to have the option of “white” and “gray,” but I’m sure more colors will become available. Eventually I expect that cars will end up covered in wraps that incorporate cephalopod-like chromatophores, giving the ability to not only change into pretty much whatever color, but introduce patterns. A big “Uber” sign, perhaps, that you can turn off.

 Posted by at 5:17 pm

Coyote Awesome

 aircraft, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, rockets, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Jan 092022
 

Recently released footage of the Raytheon “Coyote” missile blasting the bejeebers out of a series of unmanned small aircraft. It’s certainly impressive, and certainly very effective, but it seems perhaps a bit excessive for the task. A warhead a fraction of the size would seem able to do the job. If they could scale this thing down to manpad size, so that a launch system with the size and user-friendliness of a Stinger could be employed,that would make this concept dandy for taking out quadcopters and the like. If they were *really* good… rounds launchable from a standard 40 mm grenade launcher, with an ejectable warhead, so the missile itself could be recovered, refurbished and reused.

The Coyote uses small solid rocket motors for initial boost, with a jet engine for a sustainer.

image source: Janes

 Posted by at 11:56 am
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