Regarding the shoot down of satellite USA 193:
That’s the right stuff George.
For those with an interest in the technical aspects of things flying through the atmosphere and potentially shooting through your roof, check out this article and its links.
If they had implemented an electronically distributed Congress. Think about it, link all Congressional representatives together over high definition video conferencing making it possible to:
a) record all their interactions
b) keep them in their districts or States for constant access by The People
Just think hope much fuel and money we will save by not flying Congress-critters back and forth between D.C. and the various States.
The Ares rocket? Did the guy who passed this name even ever read anything about Greek mythology?
Bah, Mr. Fu prefers Orion anyway.
Fisherman caught an 1,102 pound colossal squid. Based on the beak size of his specimen, compared to those they have found in sperm whales, larger members may tip the scales at 2,000 pounds. Of course there was some calamari prepared the celebrate.
Scientists are using x-ray fluorescence to uncover previously unknown writings of Archimedes hidden under gold leaf paintings. Given Mr. Fu’s experience with x-ray fluorescence he is surprised this method had not been considered before. Perhaps it was, but th article did not make that clear.
Still, this is a big win for physics used to help archeology. Dr. Jones would be proud.
We have got to stop this! They are threating to spot publication of a professor because of his views on global warming! Oh wait, he does not believe in global warming. Never mind! Nothing to see here. Go on about your business.
Cat aspect ratios, corporal cuddling, cat yodeling, and cat static electricity, a video overview of cats from an engineering perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4
Next Mr. Fu hopes to see their work on cats with buttered toast strapped to their backs.
The ESA proposes a long duration study to mimic a 17 month trip to and from Mars. But that is because the eggheads at NASA and the ESA will not look at the real practical solution that would get you there in less then one month, Project Orion! Typical, summed up best by Bruce Willis in Armageddon:
Harry Stamper: What’s your contingency plan?
Truman: Contingency plan?
Harry Stamper: Your backup plan. You gotta have some kind of backup plan, right?
Truman: No, we don’t have a back up plan, this is, uh…
Harry Stamper: And this is the best that you c - that the government, the *U.S. government* could come up with? I mean, you’re NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you’re geniuses! You’re the guys that’re thinking shit up! I’m sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up! You’re telling me you don’t have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here, that is the world’s hope, that’s what you’re telling me?
Truman: Yeah.
The days of NASA thinking shit up may have passed.
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
- Sir Arthur Eddington
So the equations used by so many to predict global disaster are wrong? Mr. Fu is so surprised, NOT!
UPDATE: Boundary conditions are the bitch that gets you every time.
When it is described thusly:
If Nazis find something too nasty to work with, the thing is by association, nasty. Welcome to the wonderful world of flourine compounds, specifically chlorine trifluoride.
The GURPS e-mail list had a long running gag about the uses of flaming uranium hexaflouride. Just the kind of stuff you want the kiddies to have in their chemistry sets. The great REPSLEH MIJ II has story about witnessing a flourine fire. It is the kind of disaster that bugs you in the way that a nuclear event would.
Mr. Fu welcomes our new frozen, slow moving ice overlords. Finally, the slide into global cooling that was promised during Mr. Fu’s youth. Hopefully everyone around the world will enjoy making snowmen and learning to work to store up food for a real winter. Not the accursed mud season that inhabits some places.
While some of you Californians and Floridians will freeze to death in the New World Order (of the coming Ice Age). Well, perhaps not, but it is nice to hear some one talk about how wacky the man-made global warming crowd is to claim that a little extra summer is not the end of the world. Thanks to our pal SLAPSHOT for sending this in to Mr. Fu.
