Unusual technical WWII images
In the Second World War people at home with loved ones spread far away around the world with the forces were fed a diet, often government backed, of “how it works” or “how we will win” technical information leaflets. Very often these would have contained superb cut away and sectioned diagrams, showing the “insides” or as was said at the time “the works!” of the machines that were winning the war for us!
http://www.cyber-heritage.co.uk/cutaway/
SpaceX orbital rocket launch
the Falcon 1 rocket will begin its journey to orbit, accelerating to 17,000 mph (25 times the speed of sound) in less than ten minutes. Designed from the ground up by SpaceX, Falcon 1 is a two stage rocket powered by liquid oxygen and purified, rocket grade kerosene. On launch day, Falcon 1 will launch into the history books for several notable reasons:
* It will be the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit and the world’s first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
* The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon engine for an orbital booster to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years.
* The Falcon 1 is the only rocket flying 21st century avionics, which require a small fraction of the power and mass of other systems.
* It will be the world’s only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle.
* Most importantly, Falcon 1, priced at $6.7 million, will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world, despite receiving a design reliability rating equivalent to that of the best launch vehicles currently flying in the United States.The maiden flight will take place from the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands. The customer for this mission is DARPA and the Air Force. The payload will be FalconSat-2, part of the Air Force Academy’s satellite program that will measure space plasma phenomena, which can adversely affect space-based communications, including GPS and other civil and military communications. The target orbit is 400 km X 500 km (just above the International Space Station) at an inclination of 39 degrees.
Schroedingers Cat
Google sucks at mathematics
Google has a calculator built into its search engine. Apart from the basics it can also be used for unit conversions, etc. Usually I’d say that’s very nice and can be handy considering just about everything has a google query form attached to it these days.
However..
What do you think would be the result of
1 - 0.9 - 0.1
?
Depending on the order of evaluation you’d say either 0 or 0.2, right? Well, you’re wrong. It’s -2.77555756 × 10e17. Because Google says so. Try it.
http://www.google.nl/search?q=1+-+0.9+-+0.1
It gets the answer to 1 – (0.9 + 0.1) right, but anything else is off.
1 - (0.9) - (0.1)
(1 - 0.9) - 0.1
etc.
A mountain full of PhDs and what do you get? A variation on pi = 3.
Superman is a dick
Buy your local rainforest
Al Jazeera journalists run a blog
Aptly enough, it’s named “Don’t bomb us” – probably because Washington’s resident chimpansee wants to blow them up because of their annoying habit of reporting on current events in Iraq.
Most celebs look awful in real life
Magazines, billboards, internet, the television – every day we are exposed to more and more media celebrities. Most of whom make money off of projecting a totally fake, manufactured physical identity. I often find that annoying, to say the least, so articles like this make my day..
The unforgiving clarity of high-definition television has induced paranoia among celebrities obsessed with their appearance.
The technology, soon to become available in Britain, produces images so sharp that even subtle imperfections, usually hidden by make-up or flattering lighting, are brutally exposed.
So, for your viewing pleasure,
Celebrities without makeup
More celebs sans makeup
Awful plastic Surgery
Index of celeb candids, excellent!
And a couple of harsh celebrity gossip and news sites,
The Superficial
What Would Tyler Durden Do?
I don’t like you in that way
Scratch repairing car paint
Predictive maintenance for cars
Howto Stream media within your network using VLC
USAF and Lasers!
New Chief of police remebers what police means
Is smoking really that bad for you?
Well, I’ve been looking for medical proof the past 8 years that smoking really is that bad for you, but have never been able to find it – all I’ve found is conjecture, sensationalism and bad quotes by reverends and law professors. Statistical studies containing only 8 or 12 subjects are bad science, so I’ve looked long and hard for hard science on the matter containing (and I’ve frequently stated I’ll reject many scientific requirements) at least N > 100!
Now you’d think with the witch hunt going on against smoking and everybody just knowing that it’s bad for you (just like we knew the world was flat, yeah?) there’d be plenty on the matter all over the web. I’ve defied plenty of people to find it for me, and after 8 (!!!!!) years someone has found something for me:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/309/6959/901
(Mortality in relation to smoking: 40 years’ observations on male British doctors
R Doll, R Peto, K Wheatley, R Gray, I Sutherland)
Looking at this study, I found this quite
interesting:
In table I the first 2 columns indicate that he had about twice as
many smokers as non-smokers in the study in 1951. Which is,
coincidentally, about the same ratio of non smoker to smoker deaths by cancers etc
in the table III! Egads – this result is neatly replicated in table
IV.
They then make some pretty pictures, which actually make it look like
there might not be so much difference between smokers / stopped
smokers / non smokers.
The appendix table is interesting, as it shows what a load of bollocks
statistics are:
non smokers seem to almost never die of lung cancer, BUT (especially
considering the ratio of 1:2) they seem to die a lot more than smokers
of ‘other cancers’ at all ages as well as having higher probabilities
of vascular diseases, cirrhosis, ‘other medical’, non-medical deaths.
Finally, it looks like in ‘all causes’ non-smokers (still considering
the 1:2 ratio of the study) die more at all ages, except at 70-74 and
especially at 65-69 (just after they’ve retired!).
So there we go – smoking is actually quite good for you 🙂
Free Physics Textbook
How do objects and images move? Why do animals move? What is motion? […]
This site publishes a free physics textbook that tells the story of how it became possible, after 2500 years of exploration, to answer such questions. The book is written to be entertaining, surprising and challenging on every page. With little mathematics, the text explores the most fascinating parts of mechanics, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, electrodynamics, quantum theory and modern attempts at unification.
Coolest thing I’ve seen all week.
You can download it by chapter or grab the whole 40 MB pdf in one go.
http://www.motionmountain.net/
Bizarre casemod
http://sae.cside.com/sae/kat/pc/ern005/ekana.htm
I’m just glad people like this don’t spend their time trying to put “lasers” on the “moon”.
Machinima
Geopolitical news and opinion
Random roundup of political news and opinion sites
- European Voice
EU news, Eurocrats, opinions and current affairs. Excellent site for tracking what’s happening in the EU on a political level. - Le Monde Diplomatique
- Le Monde Diplomatique (English version)
The French version is naturally better (more background, documentation, etc), but the English version is easier to read (for me, at least..) - Power and Interest News Report
The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader.
PINR, it’s what’s for breakfast.
- Global Security
US-based security news site. - Jane’s Information Group
18 tricks to teach your body
American Edit
Someone went and remixed Green Day’s American Idiot and threw in the Doctor Who theme, Bush ranting about evil, hip hop, samples from all over and some other random stuff. Although sounding like a recipe for disaster, this stuff actually works. Fire up your iPod and give this one a shot:
eNetIconAppliance Online Internet Fridge
Cybersex gone awry
With conversations like these you’d think it can’t get any weirder… trust me, it can!
I.F.: My s**t is hard you ready to jump aboard?
1hOttYeVe: oh yea im so wet right now
I.F.: Why you just shower?
1hOttYeVe: no im wet for you
I.F.: Did you ever play with supersoakers when you were a kid? or that gator s**t you would dive and slide down, there was that badass pool at the end of it.
1hOttYeVe: What the f**k are you talking about? You wanna cyber or not?
I.F.: I do! Sorry…I just didnt know why you were wet…then you say your wet for me, and im thinking I didnt even throw water on you…
I.F.: Im sorry lets continue!
1hOttYeVe: alright then…I walk over to you and start kissing your neck and chest
I.F.: I pop like 16 boners
1hOttYeVe: what the f**k!
I.F.: what?
