Author Archives: Robin

Academics want to be able to state science

Posted on by
Reply

That PC has come to this: Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF) is pissed off with how if academic research stirs controversy for some reason and challenges conventional wisdom, disciplinary action (eg. firing) is being taken against the academic who voiced the research. I thought the whole point of research was to challenge accepted wisdom, otherwise we’d still think the world was flat with heaven above and hell below. The result is that now academics try to avoid controversy – and thus destroy potentially valuable science – in order to not be disciplined in some way. Shouldn’t we be open to free speech and discussion on any subject in the halls of academia?

That this isn’t some weird splinter group is evidenced by the Students for Academic Freedom (SAF) which have a site filled with examples of students being disciplined for “offensive” (ie. someone, somewhere, for some reason doesn’t like it) science.

This makes me sick in the stomach, that we are willing to prefer Political Correctness to furthering knowledge and our understanding of the world we live in, not even allowing for proper debate to refute or support unpopular views.

CVN-21 Supercarrier

Posted on by
Reply

The US is going from biggest to even bigger and commissioning a new class of aircraft carrier, the CVN-21. This will displace around 102,000 tons – compared to the British Invincible (22,000t) and the future French carrier (75,000t), this is indeed massive.
The current US aircraft carriers are built around a basic design developed 50 years ago, and allthough there are to be no radical departures in hull design (unlike the new British designs which are a radical departure featuring trimaran hulls and hexagonal flight decks), the CVN-21 will feature quite a few innovations, such as an electromagnetic launch rail, allowing for much more free space and electricity, a repositioned island and plug and play electronics, as well as better armour around the munitions bays and a better protected and more modern command centre.
The plan is to have the first one off the line in 2014.
This site has a comprehensive run down of the new features and is kept updated.

That’s sooooo GAY!!!

Posted on by
Reply

Jeremy Clarkson called a car ‘a bit gay’ and due to four complaints by a couple of poofters (four of them, no less), the Top Gear team has been told off by the BBC. Besides that calling things gay doesn’t automatically mean they are

Derogatory references to homosexuality

or even sexually oriented at all, even if he had specifically meant it that way, what’s wrong with referring to items as catering specifically to the gay community? Plenty of advertisers see the gay community as a key market!
Won’t the queer, hetero-male hating, PC crowd ever let up?!

Tin Foil Hats enhance death rays!

Posted on by
Reply

Four intrepid MIT scientists have taken an empirical look at the effectiveness of tin foil hats at stopping dangerous radio signals from penentrating the brain. Using three different models of tin foil hats, they used a network analyser to determine that these hats in fact greatly amplify certain frequencies into your brain. Coincidentally the frequencies amplified are those radio bands reserved for use by the US Government, leading the reaserchers to conclude that the governmnet may have perpetuated the tin foil hat myth for its own diabolical ends.

NASA to build moon base

Posted on by
Reply

They want a permanent base staffed and ready in 2024 as a test to see if we can rough it on the moon for a bit before doing more space exploration from there. It will be solar powered and probably placed on one of the moons poles. They plan to start construction in 2020. Everyone is invited to join in the building except China. Maybe they can use it to have a look at the huge hole they blasted in the moon earlier.

Experimental Flash Sites

Posted on by
Reply

These sites have news, information and techniques for doing weird stuff in Flash. Some very cool stuff in there.

http://www.levitated.net/
http://www.chewinggumfortheeyes.com/
http://www.nanolabs.net/
http://www.ultrashock.com/
http://www.gotoandlearn.com/

Bubbles around your hull save 20% fuel

Posted on by
Reply

The Tokyo National Maritime Research Institute’s Advanced Maritime Transport Technology Department has thought up a system that allows ships hulls to be surrounded by a blanket of bubbles, which keeps away the water from the hull, reducing friction and drag and accounting for the efficiency increase of moving through water. In 2003 > 90% of all goods were transported by ship – which means that this could be a massive environment and fuel saver.