Category: Behind The Black

Pushback: Student appeals conviction for distributing Constitution on public campus

2:10 pm

Tizon's evil table at ASU
Tim Tizon (r) discussing free speech with another student on
March 3, 2022 at that banned YAL table on the ASU campus.

They’re coming for you next: Tim Tizon, a former Arizona State University (ASU) student, has now appealed his conviction for trespass, filed against him by the university because he had had the nerve to distribute copies of the Constitution to others, without obtaining the school’s permission.

He is being represented by the Liberty Justice Center (LJC). You can read his appeal here [pdf].

The facts of the case however are simple, and mirror numerous other similar incidents on many American campuses in the past decade, all designed to silence conservatives. On March 3, 2022, when he was still a student of ASU, he had set up a table on campus as a member of the ASU chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) to help educate others on the Constitution. As noted in his appeal:
» Read more

5 comments

A Martian hill of pillows

10:45 am

Curiosity's future path, taken January 31, 2023
Click for original image.

The cool image above was taken on January 31, 2023 by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity. The red dotted line indicates roughly the planned route forward for the rover, though as Curiosity gets closer to that hill the terrain is looking increasingly difficult. The white box in the panorama below, taken two weeks earlier when the rover was about five hundred feet away, indicates the area covered by this picture. Since then Curiosity has traveled about 200 feet closer.

I post this picture specifically because of the small hill to the right of that path. Probably no more than fifty feet high, its entire surface appears cloaked by a pile of large, pillow-like pavement stones, almost as if the ground below had been washed away so that the massive top layer fell downward over time. Later, wind erosion over eons smoothed the rough edges of those massive blocks, giving them their cushion-like shapes.

This is strange geology. You might see such strange geology on Earth, but rarely. On Mars however strange geology appears increasingly common.

Moreover, to get a 3D sense of this terrain, load into your browser (on separate tabs) the full images of this hill, taken by Curiosity’s right and left navigation cameras (here and here). If you switch back and forth quickly between those tabs, you will see the slight shift in position between the two cameras, and be able to perceive this hill in three dimensions.

Panorama taken January 17, 2023 by Curiosity

2 comments

Galaxies without end

9:57 am

Webb infrared image of galaxies without end
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The mid-infrared picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Webb Space Telescope during its commissioning process last year shortly after launch, and was used to calibrate the Near-InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument, the very same instrument that for the past two weeks was not in operation because a cosmic ray had scrambled its software, requiring a reboot to fix it. From the caption:

The large spiral galaxy at the base of this image is accompanied by a profusion of smaller, more distant galaxies which range from fully-fledged spirals to mere bright smudges. Named LEDA 2046648, it is situated a little over a billion light-years from Earth, in the constellation Hercules.

While the large spiral is majestic, the tiny galaxy smudges are actually more important. Astronomers are right now scrambling to determine their distance and age in order to better understand what the universe was like, thirteen-plus billion years ago. So far the Webb data of these very early galaxies suggests that in this early universe there were many more fully formed galaxies, similar to ones we see in our time, than any theory of the Big Bang had predicted.

0 comments

Ingenuity successfully completes 41st flight

9:40 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

On January 27, 2023, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 41st flight, flying about 600 feet total in an out-and-back flight that took 109 seconds, slightly longer in length and time than originally planned.

You can watch a very short animation from a handful of the pictures taken during the flight at the first link above. The green dot on the overview map to the right marks Ingenuity’s position before and after the flight, the blue dot Perseverance’s present location. The green line indicates the flight’s approximate path, designed to scout the route that Perseverance intends to follow, as indicated by the red dotted line. The actual flight path has not yet been published. I will add it to this map when the Ingenuity science team provides it.

Expect the next flight to duplicate this one, except it will likely not return but land somewhere out ahead.

0 comments

Astronomers discover twelve more Jupiter moons

9:21 am

In reviewing ground-based data from 2021 and 2022, astronomers have discovered another twelve Jupiter moons, bringing that planet’s total moon population to 92.

All of the newly discovered moons are small and far out, taking more than 340 days to orbit Jupiter. Nine of the 12 are among the 71 outermost Jovian moons, whose orbits are more than 550 days. Jupiter probably captured these moons, as evidenced by their retrograde orbits, opposite in direction to the inner moons. Only five of all the retrograde moons are larger than 8 kilometers (5 miles); Sheppard says the smaller moons probably formed when collisions fragmented larger objects.

One newly discovered moon, dubbed Valetudo, is about 3,000 feet across and orbits in a retrograde orbit that crosses the orbits of several other moons that orbit in the opposite direction. As the article notes, “This highly unstable situation is likely to lead to head-on collisions that would shatter one or both objects.”

6 comments

Webb instrument back in operation

9:13 am

Engineers have returned NIRISS, the near infrared spectrograph instrument on the Webb Space Telescope, to full operation after rebooting its software and determining the cause of the problem.

On Jan. 15, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) experienced a communications delay within the science instrument, causing its flight software to time out. Following a full investigation by NASA and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) teams, the cause was determined to likely be a galactic cosmic ray, a form of high-energy radiation from outside our solar system that can sometimes disrupt electrical systems. Encountering cosmic rays is a normal and expected part of operating any spacecraft. This cosmic ray event affected logic in the solid-state circuitry of NIRISS electronics known as the Field Programmable Gate Array. Webb engineers determined that rebooting the instrument would bring it back to full functionality.

After completing the reboot, NIRISS telemetry data demonstrated normal timing, and to fully confirm, the team scheduled a test observation. On Jan. 28, the Webb team sent commands to the instrument to perform the observation, and the results confirmed on Jan. 30 NIRISS is back to full scientific operations.

Engineers actually have a name for such cosmic ray incidents that effect software. They call it a bitflip.

2 comments

Developments at the Houston Spaceport industry park

7:44 pm

Link here. The article gives a detailed review of the various space-related businesses (Axiom, Intuitive Machines, Collins Aerospace) that have set up operations at this industry park focused on attracting space companies to the Houston area.

The park in a sense in misnamed, as it isn’t a launch facility. However, it is now building a taxiway that will connect the park directly to Ellington Airport, which for these businesses will help facilitate the transport of large space station modules and lunar landers.

1 comment

January 31, 2023 Quick space links

3:09 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

7 comments

That ain’t snow on Mars

12:29 pm

That ain't snow on Mars
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image proves once again that you must never too quickly jump to any conclusions when you first look at a picture from space. The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 24, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

At first glance it appears that those ridges are topped with patches of snow or frost. Not. What appears white in this black and white photo is immediately revealed to be light-colored dust in the color image.

According the label assigned to this image by the science team, these ridges represent layers, likely tilted steeply so that when exposed they form the layered cliff edges where that light dust has now gathered.

The overview map below provides further evidence that the white patches are dust, not snow.
» Read more

0 comments

The next chapter in my own personal blacklisting story

12:01 pm

The ARA: An organization run by bullies
The ARA: An organization run by bullies

This past Saturday, January 28, 2023, another chapter in my own personal blacklisting saga took place. On that day the Arizona Regional Association (ARA), a division of the National Speleological Society, the country’s national organization for cavers, held its annual winter technical meeting at Kartchner Caverns in Arizona.

It is this same organization had blacklisted me and two other individuals in November 2021 because they did not like our opinions about COVID. Its leadership therefore assumed that it also the right to eject us from the public event on Saturday. It was our intention to show them they were wrong.

The goal of the winter technical, which has been occurring annually for about a half century, is to allow southwest cavers to present papers highlighting their research and projects during the past year. While intended mostly for Arizona cavers, it has not been unusual for others from other parts of the country to present, especially if their work has some connection with Arizona. Consider it a very informal kind of scientific conference.

Thus, this event has always been open to the public, and in fact has always been designed as a form of outreach.

The Wuhan panic had unfortunately caused the winter technical to be canceled in 2021 and 2022. Thus, the January 2023 event was to be the first in-person winter technical since 2020.

It was also going to be the first in-person winter technical since this organization had blacklisted myself and two others. » Read more

50 comments

Today’s blacklisted American found innocent of federal trumped up charges

11:27 am

The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest
The Houck Family: Targets of FBI harassment and arrest.

Back in September 2022 I wrote an essay entitled “The rising federal Gestapo” in which I described the numerous recent stories of the Biden administration using the FBI and the Department of Justice as weapons to harass its political opponents, either by conducting armed raids on their homes and persons, or by trumping up false charges against them.

Mark Houck, the father in the picture the right, was one of those under attack. Not only was his home raided by an FBI SWAT team, terrifying his children, but Houck was arrested on a trumped up charge of physically attacking a worker at an abortion clinic, a charge that had other courts had already dismissed as spurious.

The good news yesterday is that Houck has been found innocent of that trumped up charge.

At first it appeared the jury was deadlocked, but that changed instantly when one juror was replaced with an alternate. Within an hour the not-guilty verdict was in, strongly suggesting that juror had had a political ax to grind and was refusing to follow the facts of the case or the judge’s instructions.

As I wrote in that September essay,

In the past two years the effort by Democrats to portray Republicans criminals and traitors, merely because they disagree with Democratic Party policy, has become normalized. To Democrats today, if you are a Republican you are a fascist, an insurrectionist, a traitor, a criminal, and evil. Your rights are voided and they have the right to arrest you, at any time.

The Biden administration tried to void Mark Houck’s rights. It failed in court. Was this vicious effort however a failure? I say no, because 1) the Biden administration remains free to continue this abuse of power and 2) conservatives have now been put on notice that, at any moment, their lives could be torn apart by these thugs.

In fact, this short post is only posted to give an update on a previous column. It is not today’s daily blacklist column, which will follow shortly and will give perfect example of how the abusive power-hungry in our culture now routinely abuse their power against any who oppose them.

7 comments
1 … 625 626 627 628 629 … 2,915