Finally, it can be told. The “Primitive Technology” YouTube channel advances to the point of developing long range artillery:
Soon this guy will be launching comsats made out of bamboo.
Aug 042022
Aug 042022
Currently on ebay is a lithograph of the Martin X-23 PRIME (Precision Reentry Including Maneuvering reEntry) subscale lifting body, a mid-1960’s program to build small test vehicles for the full-scale X-24A lifting body. This depiction shows it without the “bump” on the forward fuselage simulating the contours of the cockpit canopy. The seller is rather optimistic with a $1875 Buy-It-Now price, although he will consider offers.
Another copy of the same lithograph, along with a lithograph of an orbital HL-10, sold a few months ago for less than $400. That was too rich for my blood for two lithographs, never mind nearly two grand for one. Shrug. But at least the listing provides a fairly decent photo of the art. I *believe* I’ve only seen it reproduced in B&W.
Aug 032022
In short: about 10% of the entire planetary population. Not even the Nazis, the Imperial Japanese or all the Commies managed that.
Destruction under the Mongol Empire
Interesting. When you see people shrieking about “colonization” or “imperialism,” they don’t tend to be complaining about the Mongols.
Aug 032022
Disney slammed for ‘Andor’ trailer featuring an AK-47: ‘Pissed me off’
“5 seconds into the trailer and you’ve already pissed me off,” one fan raged. “The guy has got a f–king AK-47! IN A STAR WARS SHOW! YOU’RE SO LAZY! You couldn’t be bothered to design a space gun. I’m so tired. So very tired.”
Oy. The guns in Star Wars were almost entirely based on real-life firearms, dressed up to one degree or another with added details to make them look like “space guns.” Han Solo carried a modified Mauser C96 “Broomhandle” pistol. The Stormtroopers were armed with Sterling submachine guns and MG34 machine guns and Lewis machine guns, all with minor to modest cosmetic alterations. That there would be something that looks a whole lot like an AK-47 in that universe – a galaxy with billions of inhabited worlds – should hardly be surprising.
Aug 022022
Using only skin cells, Israeli lab makes synthetic mouse embryos with beating hearts
“Synthetic embryo” is an odd turn of phrase. They got them to grow for eight days outside of a uterus, getting to the point of having brains and beating hearts.
They are similar to regular embryos, but are not viable for implantation.
He foresees a day when sick patients may give skin or blood cells for the growth of artificial embryo-like structures, which could in turn yield the cells needed to grow organs.
I saw that movie… had Boromir, Black Widow and Obi Wan.
In any event, if this line of research continues successfully, the implications could be remarkable. never mind growing organs: this will allow people to clone themselves. This also involves “incubators” that are effectively artificial wombs, allowing people to have babies without the bother of carrying babies… no need to put the mother life, health, comfort at risk. No need, in fact, for a mother at all: this sort of thing will allow a man to grow a clone of himself.
How long before the *ability* to grow clones becomes the *expectation* to grow clones? As in… when this technology is made practical, how long before “non-traditional” people start demanding that insurance companies and the government pay for this so they can have babies that nature would not otherwise allow?
Aug 022022
Now this is funny:
‘Irredeemable’ ‘Batgirl’ movie gets ‘shelved’ by Warner Bros. despite $70M price tag: source
A lot of movies get green-lit and then stopped before production because the studio realizes it’s too expensive, or the script is trash, or the actors/director are just not going to work out. It’s kinda rare for a studio to spend $70-$100 million on a movie, nearly complete the thing, show it to test audiences and then go, “Nah, hide this damn thing, let it never see the light of day.” Seems weird that they probably need to spend a dozen million more to complete it, then they can release it to whatever income it’ll get, but their math suggests that they’d be better off just eating what they’ve already spent and calling it a day.
Warner Brothers seems schizophrenic with its DC-comics properties. Non-DCEU movies like “The Batman” and “Joker” do ok, but the main-line DCEU films have had a tendency to flop. “Batgirl” had Leslie Grace (who?) in the title role, along with JK Simmons as James Gordon (as he was in “Justice League”) and Michael Keaton as Batman… you know, from 1989, not Ben Affleck from “Justice League.” Buh? It also has Brendan Frasier as the villain. But looking at the IMDB page… everyone else is a “Who’s That?” of Hollywood Z-listers.
One can hope that Warner Brothers – and Hollywood as a whole – will learn to not make trash in the first place. I’ll believe it when I stop seeing garbage on screen.
Lookin’ at *you,* Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who…
Aug 022022
Pelosi arrives in Taiwan, vowing U.S. commitment; China enraged
I’m torn. Telling West Taiwan to go pound sand, that the United States can have business and diplomatic relations with whomever we want? I’m all for that. On the other hand, the current administration has shown itself to be so weak and incompetent that the ChiCom junta were probably already itching to start something, and now the administration has given them one more thing to get in a snit over. On the gripping hand, if China pouts and throws a loud tantrum but *doesn’t* actually do anything, they will be in some sense weakened by this.
Aug 022022
Currently on eBay is a photo of a to-scale collection of NASA rockets from Redstone to Saturn V. This must date from the early 70’s… late enough to capture the damaged Skylab, early enough not to include Shuttle. The photo is ok, I suppose… what I would have wanted are the actual models. I’ve seen some of these, scattered here and there across museums (of course, more than one of each were made, probably at the Marshal or Johnson model shops), but to my knowledge I don’t think I’ve seen all of them together like this.
The same seller also has a Rocketdyne H-1 manual for sale that I’d snap up in a heartbeat if he didn’t have a four hundred dollar pricetag on it…
Aug 022022
Aug 022022
No, really. No sarcasm: this woman seems to have it figured out. Consequently, not only is *she* likely to be reasonably content and happy, so’s her husband.