A California engineer and World War II veteran has developed a bat and bird safe wind turbine.
An 89-year-old California engineer and World War II veteran has developed a bat and bird safe wind turbine.
And it only cost him $550!
Bugs Bunny – Little Red Riding Rabbit (1944)
An evening pause: “Silly, isn’t he?”
From 1944, with numerous references to the war effort. What I like most, however, is the brazen confidence. Bugs Bunny in more ways than can be imagined so clearly represents the American spirit of the war years.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“Healthy Ridicule.”
It is healthy for America that the president be criticized and even mocked. Deference to a Dear Leader has no place in a democracy. It’s healthy for race relations, too, that he be judged on his record rather than held to a lower standard in the name of racial progress. When a black politician is treated just like any other politician, that’s genuine progress.
And then there’s this:
Obama’s journalistic supporters live in a bizarre alternate reality in which a politician’s actual words mean nothing. When the president says something foolish and offensive, he didn’t say that. Meanwhile every comment from a Republican can be translated, through a process of free association, to: “We don’t like black people.”
Taranto’s second point above suggests to me that there are a lot of people on the left whose recent behavior is making them ripe targets for some very healthy ridicule.
Read the whole thing.
Eleven incredible navigable aqueducts.
Eleven incredible navigable aqueducts.
Not surprisingly, they are all in Europe, where the art of canal building has never died off.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Have scientists found an oral drug that can cure all strains of malaria?
Have scientists found an oral drug that can cure all strains of malaria?
Speed Flying down from Mont Blanc
An evening pause: The music is by Elijah Bossenbroek.
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke
Henri the cat and the videos about him has won the Golden Kitty, first place at the Internet Cat Film Festival in Minnesota.
News you can use: Henri the cat and the videos about him has won the Golden Kitty, first place at the Internet Cat Film Festival in Minnesota.
The winning video is below the fold.
» Read more
On Friday SpaceX successfully completed a launch pad dress rehearsal for the next Falcon 9 launch to ISS.
The competition heats up: On Friday SpaceX successfully completed a launch pad dress rehearsal for the next Falcon 9 launch to ISS.
Dawn’s farewell tour of the giant asteroid Vesta
An evening pause: As Dawn begins its journey away from Vesta, the science team has put together this stunning video tour of the giant asteroid.
New Horizons — on its way to Pluto — will take a look at a different Kuiper Belt object in January 2015.
New Horizons — on its way to Pluto — will take a look at a different Kuiper Belt object in January 2015.
The encounter will take place at a range of about 75 million km, a distance somewhat subject to change depending on how the probe makes its course correction. At such a great distance, New Horizons will not be able to discern features on the surface of the KBO, nor will it be able to make spectroscopic observations to try to determine the composition of the surface material.
However, New Horizons will be in an excellent position to look for small, close-in moons around the object. It will also be in a position to observe the object’s phase curve, which is a measure of how the reflectivity of the surface changes as a function of viewing angle. This will reveal a great deal about the fluffiness of the surface material (note – fluffiness is a technical term meaning, roughly, “the opposite of dense”). These two observations cannot be made from Earth, even with the most powerful telescopes available.
Congress wonders why NASA is sending “50 or more” employees to a conference in Italy.
Congress asks NASA why it is sending “50 or more” employees to a conference in Italy.
Have three little photons broken theoretical physics?
“While partisan activists tune in when their team’s big show is on the air, most unaffiliated voters view the conventions as a waste of time and money.”
Scott Rasmussen: “While partisan activists tune in when their team’s big show is on the air, most unaffiliated voters view the conventions as a waste of time and money.”
Read the whole thing. His analysis of the meaninglessness of the political conventions to the ordinary voter is right on the money. More significant, his willingness to separate himself from the political atmosphere of Washington and try to empathize with those ordinary voters illustrates clearly why he is today’s most reliable pollster.
Police once again raid the wrong house and kill a pet dog.
Police once again raid the wrong house and kill a pet dog.
What is it with these damn cops and their eagerness to kill dogs? There is simply no justification for this. First, the dog is someone else’s property. They have no right to destroy it, even if they do have a warrant. Second, there are many better and more humane ways to pacify a dog than killing it. With all their training, paid for by tax dollars, you’d think someone might tell them this.
Scientists have determined that the shape of a beer glass can influence how much beer you drink.
Science marches on! Scientists have determined that the shape of a beer glass can influence how much beer you drink.
After watching video of both sessions and recording how much time it took for the drinkers to finish their beer or sodas, Attwood’s team found that one group consistently drank much faster than the others: the group drinking a full glass of lager out of curved flute glasses. In a paper published this month in PLoS ONE, the team reports that whereas the group with straight glasses nursed their 354 milliliters of lager for about 13 minutes, the group with the same amount of beer served in curved glasses finished in less than 8 minutes, drinking alcohol almost as quickly as the soda-drinkers guzzled their pop. However, the researchers observed no differences between people drinking 177 milliliters of beer out of straight versus fluted glasses.
The last sentence reveals the large amount of uncertainty that surrounds this important research.
Let’s dance
An evening pause: Of the movies from which these dance sequences come, how many can you name? All of them are worth watching, over and over again.
The makers of a documentary critical of the Occupy Wall Street movement have received threats of violence against themselves and their families
Leftwing civility: The makers of a documentary critical of the Occupy Wall Street movement have received threats of violence against themselves and their families in advance of the film’s premiere.
“We’ll be legitimately raping Brandon Darby and Lee Stranahan for the next several days while they are tied up with the movie premier at the RNC,” reads an email from occupyaunmasked2012@gmail.com. The email includes Darby’s and Stranahan’s cell phone numbers.
One tweet reads, “While @Shanahan is in Tampa this week, should Texas rapists be told where to find his wife since he supports the rape of everyone else?”
“My wife is home with our four kids and freaked out,” Stranahan told The Hollywood Reporter. “She’s sick to her stomach.” Stranahan and Darby each said their home addresses have been published online by those who claim sympathy to OWS.
Two astronauts completed an eight hour spacewalk today, extended because of problems with several stuck bolts.
Two astronauts on ISS completed an eight hour spacewalk today, extended because of problems with several stuck bolts.
Williams and Hoshide initially progressed well through their tasks, but the astronauts struggled with difficult bolts when removing a faulty power box from the exterior of the space station, and then again when replacing the defunct unit with a new spare.
More information here. In the end they were forced to leave the replacement unit only temporarily attached because the bolts would simply not screw in. It was thought there might be debris in the screw holes.
A previously unknown tick-borne virus has been identified from samples taken from two infected farmers in Missouri.
A previously unknown tick-borne virus has been identified from samples taken from two infected farmers in Missouri.