The most important debate of our time

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Hmm..., news, politics, THIS is why Trump won, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 202020
 

What do we call the pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China? “Coronavirus” seems to be the accepted standard, even though that’s a whole family of viruses, not just the specific one that has locked down the planet. COVID-19 is specific but kinda blah. I’ve been calling it the Wu Flu for brevity and accuracy. The White House calls it the China Virus. But there’s an even better name:

Kung Flu. I like it.

Still: since when is naming a disease after the place it came from/was detected/was identified at “racist?”

West Nile

Ebola Zaire

Ebola Reston

Marburg (Germany)

Guinea Worm

MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

Spanish Flu (even though it seems to have originated in Kansas)

Lyme Disease (Old Lyme, Connecticut)

Zika (Zika Forest, Uganda)

Japanese encephalitis

Ross River (Queensland, Oz) Fever

Norovirus (Norwalk, Ohio)

Lassa (Nigeria) Fever

German Measles

Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever (Russia)

Hantavirus (Hantan, South Korea)

La Crosse (Wisconsin) Encephalitis

Hong Kong Flu

 

Yes, it’s a nightmare. As previously mentioned, I’ve got a reasonable expectation that I myself will be dead inside of a month or two, due to craptacular lungs which are probably primed to simply dissolve if I get it. And along with myself, it’s not impossible that millions of other Americans could die of this thing in a similar timeframe, especially if people keep acting stupidly. That said: if you’re looking at an existential crisis, what better way to confront it than with humor?

More memes after the break.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 8:35 am

Lockheed Flying Crane

 aircraft, art, projects  No Responses »
Mar 202020
 

The design below dates from late 1964  or so. it could be used to fly 100 passengers or 20 tons of cargo. Length was to be 100 feet with a 120-foot rotor diameter and a 90,000 pound weight. it certainly looks a *lot* like the S-64 Skycrane.

 Posted by at 6:02 am

A pandemic brings out the cringe

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., humor, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 202020
 

So a bunch of celebs thought that it’d be neato to sing one of the last century’s most insipid-yet-pretentious songs, because what the world needs now is the loving support of people who get paid millions of dollars for a few weeks of playing pretend:

It is indeed cringe inducing. A “challenge” I’ve seen in the very recent past is “how long can you play this before you turn it off;” I got about 15 seconds in. There is, however, a succinct response to this from the always reliable Gilbert Gottfried:

 

 

Ah, autotune. Sometimes it *can* be used for good (if by “good” you mean “turn them into the voices of demons”):

 Posted by at 12:09 am

United Technologies Dyna Soar booster concept

 history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 192020
 

United Tech was mostly interested in solid propellant boosters for the Dyna Soar program… specifically, boosters to strap to the side of the Titan II. Initially conical in shape, those early concept boosters would turn into the UA-1205 boosters fitted to the Titan IIIC booster. But UTC also studied liquid propellant boosters for the Dyna Soar, including the Saturn derived design shown below which featured a Saturn S-II stage for the first stage, an S-IV (*not* an S-IVb) for the second stage and an S-V stage (a modified Centaur) for the third. The design of the Dyan Soar is purely notional; United Tech seemingly did no design work on that and simply sketched in a spaceplane roughly along the lines of the design Boeing had.

 Posted by at 5:55 am

Possibilities of New Business Growth: Space Command Post

 history, nukes, projects, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 182020
 

In 1985, Rockwell International considered the possibility that there might be profit in a space station with a singular purpose… to serve as a command post in the event of a nuclear war. Its position would let it confirm Soviet ICBM launches and direct space based weapons in their response. Presumably this means that there would need to be several such orbital command posts. The brief description suggests that the command post would be in “high orbit,” perhaps geosynchronous; to have global coverage, at least two and preferably three or more such posts would be needed. The lower the orbit, the more would be needed to see the whole planet.

 

 Posted by at 5:10 pm

A month of aerospace

 aircraft, art, drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 182020
 

Given the craziness going on, I decided that what the world clearly needs is something consistent. Like, say, me posting one piece of aerospace diagram or art every day for a month or so. So I’m going to do that. But in order to keep people from getting too complacent, I’m posting some of them on this blog, some on the other blog. Why? Because why not, that’s why. I’m slapping the posts together now and scheduling them to show up one at a time, one a day. Given the pandemic… who knows, this little project might well outlive *me.*

So, check back in (on this blog or the other) on a daily basis. Might be something interesting.

 Posted by at 1:46 pm

I’m no comic book expert, but…

 AARRRGH, art, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 182020
 

… does this seem more like “an exciting new approach to Marvel comics” or “this is the end of Marvel?”

This sounds *horrible.* Is this the comic book version of “The Producers?” SJW writers have done a dandy job of torpedoing not just the likes of Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who, but also the comic book industry. At the same time that crowd-funded non-SJW independent comic books can get  thousands of buyers and make a quarter to half a million dollars or more each (“Expendables Go To Hell:” $200 grand; “Cyberfrog:” $538,000; “Cyberfrog 2:” $374,000 so far; “Trump’s Space Force:” $72,000; “Jawbreakers – Lost Souls:” $404,000), the like of Marvel can struggle to make ends meet… at the same time that Marvel movies crank out a billion dollars profit a year.

 

A video commentary on this nonsense:

 

 

 Posted by at 11:18 am

An alternate history Star Trek III

 art, awesomeness, science fiction, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Mar 172020
 

“The Search for Spock” is hands down my favorite of the Trek movies. Sure, it might not be the *best* Trek movie, but for various reasons (it was the first one I saw in the theater, it introduced the BoP, the Grissom, the Excelsior, the Spacedock and the Clydsdale) I just like it the most. So this CG-ified fan re-edit gave me the chuckles.

 Posted by at 11:52 pm

Universal Basic Income: Incoming

 Hmm..., news, politics  No Responses »
Mar 172020
 

Mnuchin pitches GOP on $1 trillion response package that involves paying Americans directly

The numbers are as yet undetermined. There seems likely to be a income limit in the range of $75,000 to $100,000 to receive this boon, and it seems likely there is a consensus of sending out $1000 checks. Where will this trillion dollars come from? Presumably Mike Bloomberg, since he can obviously afford to send everyone a *million* dollars (disagree with that statement at your social peril).

The question then will become “what shall I do with this shiny new thousand dollars in my bank account?” The unwise man will decide to invest in something like hand sanitizer or toilet paper. The wise man will, instead, invest in educating himself.

Like any major government program, once instituted it will be nigh on impossible to stop. So, a universal basic income, like it or not, good idea or not, is looking not all that unlikely to be on the close horizon.

 Posted by at 8:59 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries