So the entire US gold supply should be safely non-radioactive by now…

 art, history, Hmm..., nukes, science, science fiction  No Responses »
Jan 012022
 

In Goldfinger (1964), the villains plot was to set off a dirty A-bomb in Fort Knox, irradiating the US gold supply. The claim was made that the gold would be radioactive for 58 years, which would be… 2022. Well, here we are.

 

As an aside, I can’t say as I think too highly of the math here. Cobalt and iodine were mentioned as part of the bomb being “particularly dirty;” bombs “salted” with those substances were proposed back in the day because they would indeed make bombs dirty. The fallout would be *nasty.* But the half-life of cobalt 60 is 5.3 years; that of iodine 131 is 8 days. This means that 58 years gives cobalt 10.94 half lives and iodine 2,650 half lives. This means that cobalt would have decayed down to 1/(2^10.94) = 0.00051 of it’s original radioactiveness; iodine would be essentially nonexistent. It’s the less radioactive, longer-lived components of the bomb – the uranium, the metal bits of the casing, etc. – that should be more worrisome long-term.

I often wonder sometimes if Hollywood types even care about simple accuracy.

 Posted by at 8:13 pm

Boulder’s on fire, yo

 AARRRGH, Crazy, news, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 012022
 

Due no doubt to climate change being wrought by the Chinese, hundred mile per hour winds powered fire that ripped along the suburbs of Boulder, Colorado:

 

Aerial footage of the area post-fire looks a lot like footage of regions hit by tornadoes… just stained black.

 Posted by at 8:36 am

Well this is an exciting trend…

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 312021
 

So how’s the Commie Cough doing these days? Ummm… oh:

More than three hundred and fifty *thousand* new cases per day and still shooting skywards. How thrilling. Granted, it’s likely that the majority of these cases are the “omicron” variant which seems to be a lot less dangerous, as can be kinda sussed out with this graph:

There is of course a lag between infection and death, but since it appears that the new spike in cases really got going two weeks ago while deaths are kinda-sorta *not* spiking (though clearly not in decline, either, at around ~1300 per day), omicron at least so far appears to be something of a nothingburger.

More than half of the 824,301 deaths (so far) have been under the Biden administration. On January 20, 2020, there had been around 400,000 deaths. I wonder if Biden will stick to his word?

[3:12] Biden: 220,000 Americans dead. If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this. Anyone who’s responsible for not taking control — in fact, not saying, I take no responsibility, initially — anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.

 

 Posted by at 11:38 pm

3D printed solid rocket propellant

 awesomeness, Hmm..., rockets, science, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 312021
 

The results this guy got are… well, “meh.” But it’s a first stab at it. If he, or anybody, got the process nailed down, the potential exists for making proper star-grain solid propellant just the right size for gyrojet-style miniature rockets. An idea to improve on the gyrojet might be to make a star grain using a normal-ish solid propellant, and fill the empty volume with a high burn rate, high surface area propellant like nitrocellulose. On ignition you’d get a burst of high thrust, like the booster charge on an RPG, followed by a slower burning sustainer. For something like a gyrojet, that “slower burn” would still need to be pretty damn quick; ideally, you’d want the rocket to burn out within just a few feet. Better still, while still within the barrel. Not sure how good a printable resin-based propellant would be if filled with powdered nitrocellulose, but it might be worth some experimenting.

 Posted by at 11:20 am

Bubble burst

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 312021
 

The bursting of some “bubbles” you can see coming a mile off. One such is the “medallion” system in use in New York City for their taxis. There were a limited number of “Medallions,” basically city licenses to operate taxis, and as they were sold on their price skyrocketed. A million dollars for the right to operate a taxi seems like an insane prospect… and it is. Especially in a world with Lyft and Uber, greatly expanding the number of taxi-like vehicles while reducing the cost. How anyone thought they could reasonably make a profit with a taxi with an initial funding requirement of a *million* dollars with no guarantee that they would necessarily be able to sell that medallion later on for equal or greater money, is beyond me. It’s like going deep into student load debt to get a degree in gender studies, it’s just a monumentally financially foolish idea. And now the price of these ridiculous “medallions” has collapsed, and *of* *course* the taxi drives are protesting and demanding that the government Do Something.

NYC Yellow Taxi Medallion Crisis, Explained

The article calls it a “crisis.” I call it “an opportunity for the free market system to replace the overly regulated and corrupt system that the city had installed.” The article is actually pretty funny in a dark way… the medallions reached a peak of over a million in 2014, and have now collapsed to around $80,000 (still a ridiculous sum for a license to operate a small business). Many of the taxi drivers, which the author goes to pains to point out are largely immigrants, owe $600,000 or so. The number of medallions, and thus taxis, was capped at 13,500; the number of rideshares is over 120,000. This is A BAD BUSINESS MODEL.

This shady scheme was instituted in 1937 and amplified by Mayor Bloomberg in 2004, and by 2014 had raised $855 *million* for the city coffers. There’s no grift like a government grift.

 Posted by at 1:01 am

Way nicer than I woulda been

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 302021
 

It’s never good to steal stuff from people. It’s especially bad and stupid to steal from a popular YouTuber who knows how to use modern techmonologicamal equipment… like cameras and tracking devices.

I see no logical reason to not lay a legal smackdown on someone who steals that easily. Such a person has clearly stolen before, will do so again. They are a burden on society.

A suggestion for other tech-savvy types who think their stuff might be stolen: install tracking devices on something you’re reasonably sure will be stolen. That’s easy and obvious. But something else to add: a cell phone with a good loud speaker. A cell phone that you can call when the cops are nearby. A cell phone that will start screaming “help, help, I need the police.” Then all of a sudden you don’t need a search warrant and all the time that that takes.

 Posted by at 8:29 pm
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