Brickmuppet Blog 2.0

May 26, 2016

This Seems...Ill Thought Out

We blogged about this oddity three years ago. Now Next Big Future has a follow up.

One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes reacts to the latest information on this "tunnel bus" or "straddle bus"currently being tested in China.

OK...I find myself in general agreement with her.

This does not seem wise. I mean it really looks like many, many, accidents waiting to happen. In a broader sense it's a neat idea though, and as a streetcar (on rails) it might work very well indeed.

There's more on this here, though not quite as much as there was before the translation.

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April 28, 2016

One of These Words Seems Out of Place

Optically. Transparent. Wood.

But wait...there's more.

This actually isn't the first time we've seen wood turned into a transparent material, as nanofibrillated cellulose has been used to create items such as the substrate for wood-based computer chips. According to KTH, however, the new process should be particularly well-suited to large-scale applications and mass production.

Wood Based Computer Chips?

...scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have started producing "wooden" semiconductor chips that could almost entirely biodegrade once left in a landfill. As an added bonus, the chips are also flexible, making them prime candidates for use in flexible electronics

"Also enforces obsolescence when they rot."

See? When words are used incorrectly, there is mischief affoot.

"PIXY!! My computer has termites!"

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January 05, 2016

F-Word

The F-word of the evening is FUSION.

As in Fusion bomb.

One of which The People's Democratic Republic of North Korea seems to have just detonated successfully.

Note that tonights selection should not in any way preclude one from using any other F-words of one's choice.

Fusion Bombs (ie: Hydrogen bombs) potentially can have vastly more yield than pure fission weapons and, more importantly, can allow much higher yields in small packages suitable for delivery from missiles.

Coincidentally we are sure, the North Koreans just last month completed a successful test of a submarine ballistic missile. This is the third and seems to have fixed the bugs they ran into in their previous test.

BTW, that last link (38 North) is one to watch over the next few days with regard to analysis of tonights nuclear test.

UPDATE: There is some skepticism being expressed in some quarters. The Diplomat is estimating the yield at only 10 kilotons (half a Hiroshima) and Jeffery Lewis and others are suggesting that this is a fusion boosted fission weapon, which is technically a fusion weapon but not a real H-bomb.

Canopus. Exactly like tonight's test except for being in the wrong hemisphere, larger, above ground and French.

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December 28, 2015

So. Their Cover Story is...Salt.

Two of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes bring us news from two different planetoids.

Art by Six

First up, we have what is actually a tad more than week old news from the Main Belt. It seems that scientists going over the data from the Dawn Probe have reached a consensus for their cover story regarding the glowy bits on Ceres. They claim is that it not an alien city nor a steadily charging space laser preparing to wreak havoc upon the Earth, but rather a really big salt lick.

Image via

The effect is enhanced by thin clouds of water vapor outgassing in the salty areas that give a refractory effect that one would not normally get on a nigh airless body. It could be that Ceres has cometary properties and is orbiting right on the cusp of its critical distance from the sun.

Farther afield (quite a bit farther actually) another of our proficient and pulchritudinous planetologists brings us these spectacular videos from the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. These were only recently processed due to the combination of a necessarily slow data transmission rate and the vast amounts of information that New Horizons gathered on its brief pass.

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November 23, 2015

Well Then. This Would Be a Bad Thing.

"Holy fricking crap!"

One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes reacts to what Volcano Cafe' has chosen as their final and potentially deadliest entry in their "Volcanoes That We Really Should Be Paying More Attention To because We Don't Know Nearly enough About Them But What We Do Know Is Pretty Scary" series.

The whole list is interesting as well as disturbing, but the last on the list is quite the doozy.

Already synonymous with misery for unrelated reasons, the worlds bloodiest porkchop may one day bring suffering and death to many far from its bleak shores.

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November 10, 2015

Meanwhile....On Youggoth

It appears that NASA's New Horizons probe may have photographed volcanoes on Pluto.

Well, they certainly DID photograph two mountains that each have big fumaroleesque holes in their tops. Additionally, they seem to be associated with fairly young terrain so it is quite possible that these are, in fact, multi-mile high volcanoes.

Interestingly, these two mountains don't fit into the general pattern of geek addled naming conventions for the planetoid and it's satellite, being named for aviation pioneers ( it's those Piccards, not the other one).

Of course, while volcanoes are the most likely explanation yet, they could be something else, perhaps access tunnels for the saucers of the Sinister Snake-Women of Pluto.

Err...There's more here.

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November 08, 2015

Nukes on a Flatbed Truck

Russia has announced that they intend to begin producing a series of road mobile nuclear power plants. (via)

The project is called Pamir and the mobile plants are supposed to hiot the road sometime in 2020.

Such a short development time might be cause for considerable skepticism save for one important detail not mentioned in the article.

The picture is of a previous project, also called "Pamir" which was a Mobile Nuclear Power Plant being developed in the 1980s. The project was suspended after only two had been produced in the aftermath of the Chernobyl unpleasantness.

The concept seems to have been twofold. The plants would power dispersed mobile radar arrays that would be moved around constantly to add uncertainty to any wild weasel operations and they could be dispersed and hidden by the dozens to provide power for rebuilding after a nuclear war.

There is info on this project as well as its antecedents here, here (in Russian) and here...which mentions that it was a gas-cooled reactor based on dinitrogen tetroxide, working on a single â€“ cycle scheme which is quite interesting.

"Oh please...He doesn't have any idea what the hell that means."

Ahem...

There is also a PDF concerning the Pamir from the perspective of its dismantling under a nonproliferation program here.

Given that the original design seems to have worked, it may not be a stretch to expect that they could simply spool up production again, though the loss of the original engineering cadre would certainly be a significant hurdle.

To what end they are making this non-trivial expenditure is unclear. A couple of megawats available on 2 flatbeds would certainly be useful in building infrastructure and kick-starting settlements in Siberia, though given current events, the original operational concept may well be closer to the mark.

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November 04, 2015

Space Geysers

The massive south polar geysers of Enceladus from the night side. Picture taken by Cassini on approach during its historic pass through the plumes last week.

"Because Astro Oceanographic Vulcanology is AWESOME!"

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October 31, 2015

A Want Ad: If Fortran is Your Thing, Your Time is Now

One of Dr. Pournelle's correspondent's passed this along.

Voyager needs a programmer

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Perhaps someone in your reading audience would like to take up the challenge. It seems the current engineer for Voyager 1/2 is retiring.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a17991/voyager-1-voyager-2-retiring-engineer/

So they need someone who is greatly skilled with Fortran and Assembly languages to step in and keep the probe running. This is old-school programming at its finest; there are only 64kb of memory to work with, and this will be real-time programming , I suspect, with hard constraints.

Iâ€™m a little disappointed. Voyager is the reason I got into computers in the first place, but now after years of writing database and object-oriented programs I donâ€™t have anywhere near the experience required to do this kind of work. Iâ€™d be willing to learn .. but I suspect "willingâ€™ isnâ€™t enough. "Willingâ€ doesnâ€™t instantly make you an expert in real time software.

Respectfully,

Brian

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October 28, 2015

PLUME DIVE!

One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes reacts to the news that Cassini has survived its plume dive.

Allow us to explain...

Saturn's moon Enceladus is known to have a global, ice-covered ocean. It also has massive geysers in its southern hemisphere that spew the contents of its ocean far above its surface.

Well, in order to find out exactly what is in its ocean NASA has turned to its only probe in the Saturnian system (Cassini). Since Cassin'is only deployable sub-probe was sent down to Titan, and since scientists have learned about all they can by spectroscopy and other remote methods, they've decided to go for broke and fly the probe on a low pass right through the plume.

Word has come in this evening that the little space probe has survived!

Pictures and other data should be coming in within 48 hours!

In the meantime here is the closest picture ever taken of Enceladus's northern hemisphere which was taken last week...

Stay Tuned!

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October 24, 2015

There's Going To Need To Be A Re-Release

One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes points out the obvious application for the blackest substance ever synthesized by humans.

Art by S. Zenith Lee

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October 21, 2015

Today in History

Well...today.

We have twitter, but no self lacing shoes, Mr. Fusion or Hoverbo....

Oh Wow!

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October 16, 2015

A Rescue Mission MUST Be Undertaken!

For some reason, this story does not have top billing on Drudge, despite its awesome implications.

We should note that one of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Stunning Experts pointed us to the story.

Art by Ayaki

UPDATE:The linked story is problematically parsimonious with the pictures. There is a better spread at the Daily Mail of all places and, of course, a bunch of super high-res pictures can be found at the New Horizon's page at NASA.

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October 06, 2015

Simple Processes Involving Layyyzeerrzz

The most strongest of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Fairies brings us news fro the practical application of coherent light.

Via Brian Wang, we learn that General Atomics (could there BE a more awesome name for a company?) is expected to be offering its line of Avenger drones with 150 kilowatt lasers on them. The Avenger is a stealthy development of the much used Predator (and was formerly called Predator-C)

For comparison purposes, the article helpfully provides video of what the prototype 30 kilowatt laser on the USS Ponce can achieve.

WARNING: Military grade laser...demo may cause ear damage and extreme irritation.

Yes gentle readers, in a little over a year we will have flying robots armed with lasers!

Sarah Connor, raise your son well.

Farther afield, in San Luis Obispo, Scientists are working on a solar laser that can de-spin asteroids for exploration and exploitation as well as alter their orbits so as to deflect space rocks that threaten to impact the Earth.

Note too that if they can get a solar laser working, it is just a matter of scaling it up (a whole hell of a lot) to allow interstellar probes, perhaps even manned ones.

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September 28, 2015

Meanwhile, on the Second Closest Planet

One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes was supposed to be reporting on NASA's news conference today, but instead seems to be focused on organizing an excursion to the beach...

"We're going to need sunblock, some really big mirrors, high yield, low fission fraction H-bombs, a few tons of CFCs, some ham biscuits, lichen, iced tea, blue green algae and a towel."

I'm not sure wh...

Oh! Mars has liquid water!

"Our quest on Mars has been to â€˜follow the water,â€™ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what weâ€™ve long suspected,â€ said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASAâ€™s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water -- albeit briny -- is flowing today on the surface of Mars.â€

Zounds!

Percival Lowell, he died 99 years too soon.

("Science Babe" is actually Sakura War's Diana Caprice as drawn by Ao Ume)

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September 24, 2015

This is Worrisome

It's not just that these incredibly simple, basic questions were answered correctly by only 6% of the nation...but that one question is not even about science (indeed its opposite).

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1 I got 12 too, but in some cases by luck. For example:

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Thu Sep 24 17:55:39 2015 (RqRa5)

2 So... can you name the 13th sign of the Zodiac? (There are actually 13 constellations in the zodiacal belt, not 12.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thu Sep 24 20:05:19 2015 (+rSRq)

3

Like Pete, I wasn't certain about the hottest part of the Earth. I have this vague memory of reading that some parts of the mantle can be hotter than the core.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thu Sep 24 20:31:56 2015 (PiXy!)

4 I was expecting to do poorly, as I was never a good science student. I got 11; couldn't remember anything about water boiling temperatures, and finally convinced myself it was an urban legend that everyone thinks is true.

Posted by: Ben at Thu Sep 24 22:00:16 2015 (S4UJw)

5 The 13th sign of the Zodiac is

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thu Sep 24 23:26:08 2015 (+rSRq)

6 The secret to getting them right is they aren't trick questions; the well-known and obvious answer is the right one in every case.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thu Sep 24 23:37:52 2015 (PiXy!)

7 Changes in the temperatures and pressures of phase transitions make for an interesting topic. Remember that in most cases a tripple point has to exist, therefore some lines at P/T diagrams must be slanted and/or bent more than others.

In case of water though, this whole thing has a noticeable practical effect: the pressure cooker. After pressure cookers became widely established as a technology, some of the people living in the mountains quickly figured out that a pressure cooker may be used not only raise the boiling point above normal, but also to raise it from Denver to Los Angeles point if you live in Denver. This lets one cook food normally and save a measurable amount of fuel.

IIRC at one point the government of Nepal or Bhutan tried to ban pressure cookers because of bomb hazard and almost caused an mass unrest. Nobody wants to go back to paying 2 times more for propane.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Thu Sep 24 23:55:58 2015 (RqRa5)

8 I got 11 of the questions correctly. On the plus side, I'll be pleasantly surprised the next time I prepare pasta in Denver.

Posted by: Wonderduck at Fri Sep 25 20:43:42 2015 (a12rG)

9 I object to the optics question. Depending on the index of refraction, relative to the index of the medium, either convergence *or* divergence is possible for a plano-convex lens. Also, there are reflected rays. :-P

Posted by: ams at Mon Sep 28 20:33:07 2015 (GtPd7)

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September 20, 2015

Oh My Stars And Garters YES!

Also this...which is just as awesome but lacks the derp.

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September 14, 2015

Best Picture Yet

...of the exhaust port, alien city, ice deposit or whatever is going on in Occator Crater on Ceres.

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September 10, 2015

More Pluto!

One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes brings us news from the edge of the solar system.

Actually, she's not at the edge of the solar system.

Come to think of it, Pluto isn't either, because there is still the Oort Cloud and Kupier Belt which extend for hundreds of AU before one gets to the Heliopause.

Anyway, our science corespondent reports that the experts are cataloging and naming the features on Pluto and Charon....

"Golly. I guess it makes sense that they'd've completely exhausted Edith Hamilton as a source for names."

Well...

In any event, NASA has downloaded several high rez pictures from this summer's flyby of the object formerly known as the 9th planet and here are a couple...