Switch around a few details in this story, and cities would go up in flames and the Federal government would bend over backwards to enforce new policies. As it is? It’s essentially non-news.
“Random” my shiny metal ass.
In 2015, Allen Pan made a “real burning lightsaber” that worked by using butane to pressurize methanol, squirting it like a tiny supersoaker and setting the stream alight. The concept was… well, “insanely dangerous” is probably fair. Still, it worked:
But then…
The cheap knockoff took an idea that was insanely dangerous and said “meh, let’s make it as awful as possible” and scored a hundred grand .
I’m in the wrong damn business.
Another strange piece of 1970’s/early 1980’s Boeing art, this time depicting an “Intercity Transport.” What’s going on with that circular “inlet” on the rear upper fuselage? Damnfino. Just visible under the wing root is a low-set inlet, so that would seem to provide what’s needed for the propulsion system. If there was a vertical thrust system in the nose, and good low-speed control systems on the outer wings, then that circular inlet would be fore a VTOL system. But on its own? Hmmm.
The full rez scan of the artwork has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-05 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. 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with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
From the fine folks who brought you a hydraulic press crushing everything imaginable, here is a massive steel box with a small hole with a grenade-sized explosive in it. The demonstration you didn’t know you needed to see until you saw it.
Note that this demonstrates how a near-instantaneous explosive can be turned into an actual rocket. Just not a good one.
The observant observer will note that something seems to be missing from the front view here. However… it’s accurate as depicted.
Haven’t we?
Apparently, if some shrieking weirdo appears to be a male and you refer to them as such and they think of themselves as female – or something else entirely – you have just “misgendered” them, and that’s terrible and bad and wrong. Not because what you’ve said is objectively factually inaccurate, but because they simply don’t *like* to be called male.
Fine, whatever.
In recent years, an effort has been pretty successful to start referring to people who identify as what their bodies are as “cisgendered,” “cis-male,” “cis-female.” This terminology was not chosen by your average “cisgendered” person, but has been dropped on us without our consent. So… referring to a “cisgendered” person as such seems to me to be a form of “misgendering.” Such misgendering should, it seems to me, be countered with something like “I’m not ‘cisgender,’ I’m ‘normal’.” You can then launch into a five-minute rant about how the other person is ignorant and in need of education and how it’s not your responsibility to provide, free of charge, the emotional labor required to train them up in the recognition of such things.
Discus.
For reference:
Finished this one tonight. The main line thickness is somewhat exaggerated here.
While I scribble away on my 2007-vintage CAD software and Word 1997 edition, I believe I’ll fire up the two-part 1997 TBS TV movie, “Rough Riders.” I’ve loved this flick for decades (uuuuughhhhh…. Iiiiii’mmmm ooooollllld); it’s an entertaining retelling of the story of Theodore Roosevelts “Rough Riders” in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. As it was directed by John Milius (director of the original “Conan the Barbarian” and the original “Red Dawn”), you *know* it’s going to be good. Throw in Sam Eliot and Gary Busey, Dale Dye and R. lee Ermey and, come on. You *know* you want to watch it.
For years I’ve watched this on an increasingly scratched up DVD. But now it seems to be on YouTube, at apparently – somehow – higher resolution. I haven’t watched the YouTube version yet, so I don’t know if it’s borked in any way, but I’m going to assume that it’s fine.