Random Bits of Wrong

Christmas kept me away from most entertainment so this week I determined to  had been considering seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still, however the reviews were not good and amongst my messages from an Email list I'm on were these lucid comments on the film by those less fortunate than I.

Save your money for the cheap show, or PPV.

 

"Just saw a movie that happened to have a title card that read "Day the Earth Stood Still""...

...been lurking around for many years, but  I felt  I had to say
something ...and this new disaster makes me feel like somebody threw  a
ton of raw, fresh excrement onto me, in IMAX format, yet...what kind of
Hollywood dumbass wrote this thing?

I decided to go with Bob^tm and see The Spirit instead.

Now I liked both Sin City and 300, the latter more than the former and this is the Spirit after all so I went i with high hopes.


I must confess that it was welcome to see that after all the fan service for the girls in 300 that this provided lots of fan service for the my demographic.
It was also nice to see Samuel L. Jackson having a completely batshit bonkers good time as the Octopus...or perhaps he simply went batshit bonkers during filming and the directors ran with it.
On the other hand...
What in the HELL!?
That was an ODD film....
I didn't exactly hate it but it was really strange and more than a bit unsatisfying...

Anyway this evening I went on the internet and started doing some work on some upcoming posts, in the process I did an image search....
...and encountered a picture where someone had perpetrated "Rule 34" on a
Cadbury..
cream...
egg....

Shudder....not that Cadburry cream egg tan wasn't sort of..cute...but damn....that ain't right.

I need a soda....wait...what??? HOLY HELL!!!

Yes kids....It's the grape soda who's flavor really grabs you....at $2.67 a bottle, it had damn well better.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:58 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 334 words, total size 3 kb.

Paper Airplaines...FROM SPAAAACE!!!

How on Earth did I miss this?
The Pink Tentacle brings us this neat story from March on what is the ultimate egg drop ( but with no egg involved).

Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its trip back to Earth.

This seems like it could be doable. The fact that these are made of paper should give them light enough wing loading. OTOH they will still be traveling at suborbital velocity when they begin to hit the sensible atmosphere, the light loading might not be enough.

Of course we won't know till we try! 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 109 words, total size 1 kb.

A Quick Link Roundup Regards Todays Just Reciprocity

Breaking a "ceasefire" that involved around 3000 rockets landing in their towns and killing all manner of civilians ( the Palestinians particularly seemed to target schools)over the last year, Israel has hit back and hit back hard.

Very Surprising...Egypt condemned Hamas!,,and opened fire on them! _{(both via)}

Meryl has had superb coverage all day...see here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Israellycool is liveblogging.

Richard Fernandez has more...and provides this helpful graph of the rocket attacks on Israel during the "ceasefire".

Jules Crittenden has some thoughts and analysis.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 96 words, total size 2 kb.

Questions Answered

Some questions  recently appeared in the comments of these two posts, regarding energy policy.

"Fortunately" after a tragic lab mishap involving Mentos, one member of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes is now ideally equipped to deal with comment threads that have returned from the dead! She now shambles up to answer these questions.

First up, 'Alternate Energy' asks about the relative energy yields of sugar beets and switch grass.

That's a hard one to figure as there are several factors involved, but some ballpark assumptions can be made.

Here sugar beets are credited with providing even better yield than sugar cane at an experimental French farm.

For ethanol, the top yields per acre are 714 gallons from sugar beets in France and 662 gallons per acre for sugarcane in Brazil

This might well be misleading as sugar beets are hard on the soil and need to be rotated rather more than other crops. That site mentions that one sugar beet crop per field every 4 years is a good rule of thumb with one per 3 being rather risky, so the number probably would realistically be 1/4th of that given.

By comparison, according to this report, switchgrass yields a theoretical maximum of 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acer.

These numbers are also somewhat as the celulosic process mentioned in the post is not fully operational (though it is very promising). The big advantage of switchgrass is that it is a weed, a native species and can be grown very well on marginal land that isn't really suitable for other crops. This is not the case with sugar beets and is important because we don't want to be displacing food crops for fuel. That is a very bad thing!

I personally think that algael oil, about which more here, here and here is a better option in general with a yield of kerosene type hydrocarbons 50 times that of the best ethanol producing crops. However,  switchgrass certainly has potential to supplement that. (Ethanol also works fairly well in suitable Otto cycle engines, whereas algae produces what is fairly close to diesel fuel.)

A comparison of various crop yields can be found here. Note that most displace food and that Congressional favorite corn is by far the worst of the lot.

Alternate Energy also asks in this post why there has been so little buzz surrounding Thorium Cycle Reactors _{(first mentioned here, or rather at the old blog, in '06).}

The reasons for that stem from in part from the anti nuclear hysteria found in so much of the green movement, but also from a policy decision made by the Carter administration in 1977 when we got out of the fuel reprocessing business. The idea was that plutonium should not become a commodity to be traded and that this would ease proliferation risks...In practice this meant the US ceded an entire industry to the Europeans, the Russians and the Japanese.

Additionally, the media has been very hostile to nuclear power in general over the years. It should be rembered too that this is a technology that was abandoned. This gives, to a casual observer, the mistaken impression that it failed....which can cause it to be further dismissed.

The most promising thorium reactors are liquid fluoride reactors which burn up the vast majority of their fuel, far more efficiently and with less ultimate waste than other types. However this cycle is a breeder cycle and that got it nixed from consideration. Other types of thorium plants  have the advantage of using thorium fuel instead of uranium of course. This vastly increases global fuel reserves but these other thorium reactors don't really minimize waste as far as I know.

A previous post on this blog regards nuclear power in general can be found here, and nuclear  scientist Kirk Soronsen...who actually KNOWS what he's talking about...has a blog as well as a very informative discussion forum where thorium fueled reactor related issues are discussed in great detail by a variety of people far more experienced in them than an undergraduate oceanography major.

^{Undead science babe has been identified as "Franken Fran" and is a creation of Manga artist Kigetsu Katsuhisa.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 699 words, total size 6 kb.

The Coast Guard in 2008

The US Coast Guard has compiled a list of what they consider their top ten video clips of Coasties in action. My favorite is the first one...

Since the removal of the ASW equipment from cutters in the early '90s, Coasties new method for dealing with pesky submarines is, apparently...
...to tackle them.

Hat tip: EagleSpeak

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 61 words, total size 1 kb.

Mirelurks and Deathclaws and Raiders...OH MY!

Good lord! The sun...It's up...It's like Noon!
 This game is more cracklike than the most cracktacular crack to have ever cracked out of a crackpipe!

I am learning all sorts of things though...Heretefore, I thought the term "Fire Ant" meant something less....literal. I would also have thought that after 200 years cars would no longer be combustible. This is actually incorrect...so using them for cover is not recommended.
I hope everyone had a great holiday!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:57 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 81 words, total size 1 kb.

Merry Christmas Brickmuppeteers! (Or Whatever You're Celebrating)

art by Simosi

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.

More on The Paths not Taken

Over at the Unwanted Blog, where Scott Lowther has a selection of pictures from Project Meteor, a hugely ambitious program from 1956 that was as Lowther puts it...

This was somewhat similar to the “Colliers” space program as envisioned by von Braun and others… just not so small and limited.*

Not so limited indeed...the station was half a mile long and the gravity deck (centrifuge) was 1500 feet in diameter. This was the size of an O'Neal colony...in 1956!
I was familliar with the interesting and forward thinking Meteor ferry rocket, from Ron Millers, The Dream Machines. However I had NO idea that it was tied to such an ambitious project.

In theory, the optimum altitude for a station is around1050 miles up or so which is beyond all traces of the earths atmosphere, however what was not known prior to Explorer 1 is that that orbital sweet spot is smack blam in the middle of in the Van Allen Belts. Low earth orbit, though considered a hard vacuum, still has enough trace atmosphere to cause some over time drag, making satellites there non-permanent or high maintenance. However, given the investment in the thing and the plans concurrent project for reusable space launchers, this could have probably been made to work.
Lowther has a 59 page report describing the project in great detail for sale here along with several other forgotten chapters of aerospace history.

^{*Explanation of the irony in this statement can be found at this awesome site. dedicated to the "Colliers Space Program"}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 296 words, total size 3 kb.

Purple Squirrel

No really. A purple squirrel. _(via)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

Sunday Funnies

Several people do a Sunday funnies bit where they pic a political cartoon for the week. Over at Flopping Aces, they've carried this to the next level.
Which political cartoons you ask?
As the great John Connor once said,"....all of them I think."

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 45 words, total size 1 kb.

Momentary Memephilia

All the cool kids are doing it....

• What anime are you watching now?
Bleach, Lucky Star

• What is your favourite time to watch?
The middle of the night.

• And your favorite place?
Within line of sight of the monitor (duh!)

• Who is your favourite auteur?
Satoshi Kohn

• Your favourite OST?
3 actually, Space Cruiser Yamato, Grendaizer, Ghost in the Shell

• What is the most difficult anime you’ve ever watched?
Serial Experiments Lain...but it was worth it


• What was the first anime you remember watching?
Marine Boy or Speed Racer in '74

• Do you have a comfort show that you re-watch?
I watch Arivadercci Yamato every Christmas. I also re-watch select episodes Starblazers, Mazinger series robot shows and VanDread from time to time.
.

• What is the most erotic anime you’ve watched?
As an American I am protected by the 5th amendment to the United States Constitution...

• Which classic should you have watched?
Doraemon.

• Which series did you never want to end?
Bleach....despite its Shonen Jump tropes, the characters are superbly realized and the story is engaging.

• What is your most overrated anime?
Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Which character could you have an affair with?
LOL whut?


• Who is your favourite character?
Ichigo from Bleach...closely followed by Meia Gisbourne from VanDread

^{Other runners up that spring to mind immediately..
Vash from Trigun
Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist
Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke}



• Which character do you most dislike?
Probably Shinji from Evangelion

• Which character do you identify with most?
Linna Inverse from Slayers....which is probably a sign of deep seated emotional problems.

• Which anime changed your life?
Starblazers

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:30 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 285 words, total size 5 kb.

7 Working Days Left Till Christmas is Past

And I'm short of time so here are Saber and Rin from Fate Stay Night

...as well as some quick links....

As most of you know, some asshat set fire to the Wasilla Church that includes amongst its members, Governor Palin. There is now a fundraiser to help.

The Anchoress has some interesting thoughts on the shoe incident.

Via Steven Den Beste comes this humorous translation fiasco.

The Carnival of Space has been taken over by those pesky antipodians.

Finally Colleen Doran posts a well researched and interesting piece on the evolution of Shojo Manga, a possible american connection and the awful story behind that story. Read the whole thing

^{.(Note in reference to her post, that the culture museum in Nagasaki has a large display of  pre Tezuka Girls Manga some of which are seen here)}

Update: Rand Simberg has posted a long and informative article from 2004 never before published in full, debunking several myths of spaceflight and proposing a productive way forward...I've added it to this previous post of mine which looks at some of the same issues but does so rather less well.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:37 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 195 words, total size 3 kb.

Holiday Chaos

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 15 words, total size 1 kb.

Signs of the times...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:57 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 130 words, total size 1 kb.

WTF??

Seriously Eric......WTF?!?

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 3 words, total size 1 kb.

A Few Random Bits

DigiKerot just wants the DVD and is unimpressed with the marketing departments attempt to splice Rube Goldberg's DNA onto origami.

Wonderduck has had a rough week, but he has discovered the joys of customer satisfaction.

Pete has begun watching Midori no Hibi (mentioned in passing here) and seems to be enjoying it.

Steve Den Beste is finicky...(who knew!)...nevertheless, he takes the time to explain why this might be a good time...as in the last time...to get several series.

Colleen Doran has a roundup of links, starting off with another reason not to date...but she also has advice for aspiring artists and many fans....

Copyright: There's a better way to learn the basics than making an enemy of an artist with more money than God. 

Finally, many people are quick to point out that Anime is a perfectly respectable hobby.
Pixy Misa helpfully puts that myth to rest in a post that requires he put this 'explanation' in the associated comments.

Well, there's at least two others with plausible excuses - one wearing inflatable falsies, and one with a trout in her bra.

(probably NSFW)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 188 words, total size 2 kb.

Normally I am Very Enthusiastic about Diesels

But that is only in reference to the engine...not the spambot.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:32 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 18 words, total size 1 kb.

Oh God...

....it's Christmas at UPS again.

 I'm going in early to help park the trucks and staying late to help pull them out of the building. I actually managed to make more overtime than straight time last Friday (double secret overtime!?). Anyway I'm tired, so tired that I got home Friday put the key in the door to unlock it and was momentarily puzzled when it wouldn't start...

I'm taking all the hours I can now because this may be it. Some UPS centers in Virginia are reportedly going to close after the holidays and as I mentioned previously there are lots of layoffs on the horizon. There was a big spike in volume up to yesterday but I suspect that this is companies desperately clearing inventory for tax purposes...and it is Christmas at UPS after all.

On the home front, the pickup of peril is now sporting a clutch. (yay!)

I leave for work momentarily, but here are a couple of.....

Christmas carols!

Also here...


Well, enough religion for now.....I'm off to work. Blogging is going to be necessarily light till the weekend. Stay safe!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 187 words, total size 1 kb.

Murdoc is Running a Contest

You have to go there for the details.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

Multitudinous Mammaries Mysteriously Missing

A large shipment of inflatable boobs has gone missing en route to Australia.
They must be located in 2 days or they will miss their deadline. No.Really.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:37 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 46 words, total size 1 kb.