Rush on Phil

 awesomeness, history, Hmm..., humor, politics, youtube  No Responses »
Feb 192021
 

This is an interesting summary of Rush Limbaugh from nearly 30 years ago. Much of it applies as much today as it did then, including the brain dead moron who accuses Rush of being a fascist, but who cannot actually *define* fascism. Most of the topics discussed are such that it could have been filmed today… except, of course, one of the fellers being dead and the other being long since culturally irrelevant.

Note that it includes the original commercials. Most of them are utterly forgettable… but a few of them might, if you are old enough, give you flashbacks.  “Jean Luc!”

 Posted by at 11:27 pm

Nuclear Princess Model

 aircraft, drawings, drawings&documents, history, models, nukes, projects  No Responses »
Feb 192021
 

Recently for sale on ebay was a display model of the Saro “Princess” turboprop flying boat, as Convair planned to modify it into a nuclear-powered research prototype. This late 50’s design was ballsy if nothing else: a nuclear reactor would be installed within the fuselage, providing superheated air from the reactor to the inboard above-wing modified turboprops. Unlike the NB-36H, this aircraft would have been actually powered by the reactor.

A description of the concept was written up HERE. A set of detailed diagrams are available as Air Drawing 8.

 Posted by at 8:52 pm

Flip the color values and imagine the results

 Crazy, Forward!, news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 192021
 

First up:

New York School Encourages Parents To Become ‘White Traitors,’ ‘White Abolitionists’

Abolish white people, y’all.

And then:

Huh.

I wonder what would happen if Coca Cola put “Try To be Less White” in great big letters on their packaging.

 Posted by at 7:46 pm

This is both cruel and hilarious

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, Hmm..., youtube, YouTubers worth watching  No Responses »
Feb 192021
 

The Lock Picking Lawyer is always a channel worth watching. And if you ever find yourself in need of defeating a lock, he might well have a video that can show you how to do it… and often how to do it *very* quickly. Some locks turn out to be ridiculously easily defeated.

Such is the case here. This is not a practical lock, but a lock meant purely as a gift. It is a keyless lock that, once closed, is supposed to never be opened again, to demonstrate the permanence of love. He opens it in about three seconds.

 

 Posted by at 5:52 pm

The Book Burners again turn to sci-fi

 AARRRGH, books, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, science fiction, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 192021
 

Burning down a brick-and-mortar science fiction bookstore was not good enough for the modern book burners; now they’re going after publishers who publish wrongthink in order to prevent those books from getting printed in the first place. In this case, Baen Books which has the temerity to publish some authors who are libertarians and even GASP conservatives.

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT BAEN’S BAR

Publishing House Baen Books Attacked by Cancel Culture

 Posted by at 10:34 am

And another computer goes kaput

 AARRRGH, blather, Gah., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 182021
 

Once again the transitory nature of life is driven home to me by one of my computers giving up on doing its job. This was my dedicated internet computer, an HP that has a plastic case that has been falling apart for a year now (apparently a common problem with that model). It still runs, but it has decided that it no longer wants to actually connect to wifi, which kinda defeats the purpose of an internet computer.  It might be tomorrow or longer before I’m up and running again.  This is being tapped out on my phone, which is a pain.

 

UPDATE: Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnd now it’s working again. Hmmm. Should I trust it to keep functioning? Hmmm. I think I’ll put as much faith in its continued functioning as I would in the continued proper functioning of a career politician who has recently stumbled across a sane policy position. in other words: still gonna hunt down a replacement.

 Posted by at 10:31 pm

Scuttling goes quick

 AARRRGH, Hmm..., ships, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 182021
 

Last year the ore carrier “Stellar Banner” ran aground off Brazil (February 2020). The decision was made to scuttle the vessel, and in June of 2020 it was sunk in deeper waters. This process took 20 minutes… but most of the actual sinking occurred in a matter of seconds:

Once it started going, it went down in a hurry.

 Posted by at 12:57 pm

Perseverance almost to Mars

 Hmm..., news, nukes, rockets, science, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Feb 182021
 

It will hit the Martian atmosphere at 3:55 PM eastern coastal elite/12:55 left coast time (2:55 central/1:55 mountain flyover country time). With any luck, about seven minutes later it will hit the Martian surface at a speed that doesn’t turn the rover and it’s helicopter payload into scrap.

Here’s a chatty NASA live stream:

Animation of the landing process:

 Posted by at 12:26 pm

Large scale ornithopter

 aircraft, awesomeness, Hmm..., science, youtube  No Responses »
Feb 182021
 

This ornithopter (Russian form the looks/sounds of it) recently flew in a controlled manner. It looks like it was a rough ride; it’s not clear to me what practical advantage such a system has over pretty much *any* other form of aerial locomotion beyond “because it’s cool.” Which is, of course, reason enough to do pretty much anything.

 

An earlier flight of a prior iteration did not go so well.

An even earlier flight of an even earlier iteration *did* fly successfully, if slowly and incredibly loudly:

A video of the designers. Turn closed captioning on to read what they have to say:

 

I suppose if they could improve the system so that it takes off and lands vertically, then switches to fixed-wing forward flight with a conventional propeller, it might turn out to be an efficient-ish  drone for some applications.

 Posted by at 12:06 pm
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