Category: Uncategorized

An appreciation of the camera obscura. The nearest camera obscura to me. An entirely different Camera Obscura, but one I recommend.

The zombies have taken over, the ice age occurred, and everyone decided to cut loose with the nukes. How much time do you have to set up the solar panels and wind turbines before the electrical grid fail? The Straight Dope takes a look…

Bottom line? My guess is that within 4-6 hours there would be scattered blackouts and brownouts in numerous areas, within 12 hours much of the system would be unstable, and within 24 hours most portions of the United States and Canada, aside from a rare island of service in a rural area near a hydroelectric source, would be without power. Some installations served by wind farms and solar might continue, but they would be very small. By the end of a week, I’d be surprised if more than a few abandoned sites were still supplying power.

The Russian Soyuz space capsule has to make an emergency landing in the United States! What do you do? Read your official Air Force Rescue Coordination Center PDF file, that’s what! I wonder if there is an ATF import form for the Soyuz’s standard equipment sawed-off shotgun?

This is nothing new though, read up about “Ugol Pasadki.” Countdown to when “Ugol Pasadki” is used as a stoner rock band name begins in 5… 4… 3…

Alan Radecki on the Mojave Airport list sent out the following update on Monday morning’s attempt at the X-Prize:

Hi all,

Starting today, I plan on sending out a daily update on the activities surrounding the SpaceShipOne launch.

• The flight is scheduled to commence at 0630 Monday 6/21, however that is dependent on weather. Should there be a weather delay, such as winds, the folks at Scaled plan on waiting and launching as soon as the weather permits, even if it stretches to the next day.
• The public will enter the airport from the main Airport Blvd entrance off of Hwy 58. The airport will open at 3am, but it is pretty much assumed around here that there will be so many people showing up that the roads will be clogged. RVs will be permitted in the day before, with reservations (661/824-2433). I know that there’s already 89 coming, some of whom are NASA folks who are bringing a band and everything. Regular vehicles will be charged $10 entrance fee (to help mitigate the huge cost of security that the airport has to bear), and I can’t remember the RV cost…check mojaveairport.com for details. Don’t try to avoid the traffic by coming in the back entrances…these are for VIPs with passes and tenants with ID badges.
• There will be a TFR, and only aircraft with PPR numbers will be permitted into the airspace, starting on Saturday, I believe. Again, see mojaveairport.com for details.
• If you don’t make it onto the airport, you’ll still see the firing…it’ll be visible for miles.
• There will be food and consessions selling souveniers, with all profits going to local charities.
• There will be a press conference 2 hours after the flight, at which time the FAA will award the first ever Commercial Pilot’s License with Astronaut rating.

OK, so I got a gmail.com account. Yay me. Please direct all your spam to quartzcity@gmail.com, if you have one of the other addresses, please keep using that. k thanks bye.

Back in 1983, the singer of the band I was in then spray painted “I’ll Only Be Happy When Reagan Is Dead!” on the wall behind a Pomona doughnut shop. Twenty-one years later, my sentiments really haven’t changed. This list is for him:

1. D.O.A. – “Fucked Up Ronnie”
2. Ramones – “Bonzo Goes To Bitburg”
3. Dead Kennedys – “We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now”
4. D.R.I. – “Reaganomics”
5. The Crucifucks – “Hinckley Had A Vision”
6. J.F.A. – “Jody Foster’s Army”
7. D.I. – “Reagan Der Fuhrer”
8. The Minutemen – “If Reagan Played Disco”
9. The Damned – “Bad Time For Bonzo”
10. Day Glo Abortions – “Ronald McRaygun”

With special shoutouts to the Bonzo Goes To Washington “We Begin Bombing In Five Minutes” megamix and the video the The Minutemen’s “This Ain’t No Picnic”.

From the “this does not bode well” file.

Test subjects can’t see the invisible beam from the Pentagon’s new, Star Trek-like weapon, but no one has withstood the pain it produces for more than three seconds. People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain disappeared instantly.

The long-range column of millimeter-wave energy is known as the “Active Denial System” for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing. Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop evaluation this fall, say years of testing has produced no sign it will lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.

Whenever possible, I shop at supermarkets that don’t have membership cards on general principle. The cards are invasive and have little to do with “savings” and are merely a way for supermarkets to charge much higher prices under the misinformed nose of consumers. Even just the name “loyalty program” makes my hair bristle and I get irritated whenever a checker tries to push a card application form onto me. I know I know, the poor checkers are ordered to do it, but still.

Now hotels are the latest industry to take to loyalty programs. So when you’ve just arrived somewhere after a long day of traveling, expect to get an aggressive hard sell.

In the past, properties pretty much limited their sales pitch to pamphlets at the check-in counter, and tended to emphasize the perks of membership, like upgrades and gift baskets. But in recent months, travelers say, they have become more vocal about the benefits of joining – and have begun punishing guests who refuse by putting them in less desirable rooms or saddling them with surcharges.

“If you’re not part of a hotel’s frequent-guest program, you’ll get a brochure pushed in your face when you check in,” said Frank Kwan, a communications director for the Los Angeles County Office of Education in Downey, Calif. “They strongly encourage you to join the program. And if you don’t, you pay for it.”

macnews.net.tc describes my dream laptop:

A notebook. Style: 12″ PowerBook. But smaller. 10″ widescreen display at, say, 1024*600. Display type would be active-matrix greyscale. Yep, greyscale. Those were the only displays one could use under any light-conditions. But they don’t make those any more. So: Transreflective colour TFT. Processor: 500 MHz G3. Or higher, if a more modern processor uses less power, that is. RAM: 256 MB. Harddisk: 4 GB flashdrive, as mentioned above. Optical drive: None. (No need. You’d put the thing in FireWire-TargetMode for synching with your main Mac and could also install the OS etc. like that.) Form factor: About the size of one of those old VAIO picture-books. And battery power for more than eight hours.

Sure, the thing wouldn’t run OS X like a king, but hey: What speed do you need for TextEdit? And it’d still double as an iPod that could also display DivX (erhm, MPEG-4, legally acquired in some or other way, *cough*!) movies. The harddrive, of course, could be replaced by a ‘normal’ notebook harddrive with up to 60 GB. You would sacrifice battery life for space then, of course. But that thing could still last for more than 6 hours. End of wishlist. – Oh, and the other nostalgy part: This could be called “eMate 500”. 😉

Speaking of Godzilla, it’s obvious no surprise that every country needed to get in on the “giant monster crushing city” game – Denmark had Reptilicus crushing Copenhagen way back in 1961, Hong Kong released Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent, and the Thai film industry is about to release Garuda .

Buried in obscurity is Pulgasari, the North Korean monster who eats iron, helps the farmers defeat their imperialist oppressors before turning against them by eating their farm implements. File it as an inadvertent must see along with the Turkish Star Trek.