McCain Wins Debate!
Although the fate of tonight’s presidential debate in Mississippi remains very much up in the air, John McCain has apparently already won it — if you believe an Internet ad an astute reader spotted next to this piece in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal this morning.
“McCain Wins Debate!” declares the ad which features a headshot of a smiling McCain with an American flag background. Another ad spotted by our eagle-eyed observer featured a quote from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis declaring: “McCain won the debate– hands down.”
DARPA Discopter Concept
So this is an artists rendition of a possible implementation of one of DARPAS newest babies, the Discrotor copter.
The idea being to eliminate the speed limitations of rotor based aircraft by making the rotors retract into a disk at high speed, and thus circumventing the problems associated with rotor tips going supersonic.
OK, So my physics/aerodynamics may be a little rusty, but I’m missing the part about how efficiently the resulting disk is going to generate lift, even at high speed…
Info
www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/05/darpa_disco_copter/
Concept renderings
www.vranek.ch/dragonfly.htm
Giant Spider Attacks London!
A giant mechanical spider hangs from a disused building in the centre of Liverpool, England, Wednesday Sept. 3, 2008, in readiness for the start of a five-day piece of street theatre as part of the European Capital of Culture.
The spider has been built by French company La Machine, which in 2006 displayed a similar artwork called The Sultan’s Elephant, in London.
ANIMORPHS FTW!
Tags:Books, Fantasy - Science Fiction
Darwin didn’t see this shit comin!
SUP DOG
Tags:Cute As Hell Animals, Sexy, WTF
Sup.
Are You A Total Loser?
Mark off all the spaces that apply to you. If you can connect 5 in a row, or mark off more than 15 spaces…well, I have some bad news for you.
Golden Gate Bridge at Night
Tags:Aerial, Golden Gate Bridge, Wallpaper
Birds do It. Bees do It. And, apparently, Dragonflies do It too!
Male dragonflies grab females by the head, using special appendages at the end of the abdomen. If the fit isn’t quite right, the female will not cooperate in the aerial mating, and the male will soon let go. In a sense, the female dragonfly is choosing a mate by this act of noncooperation. Females may also “choose†which packets of sperm fertilize their eggs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_fly
Tin Foil Hat Time
During lunch today, one of my friends says “Did you hear they’re going to be deploying an Army group here in the US”, to which I reply, ‘no, that’s against constitutional law’. After lunch was over I did a bit of googling:
“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
Ok, my tin foil is firmly on, but if you combine this ArmyTimes.com story with the previous stories we’ve heard of massive detention centers, what does this mean?
We now have places to put malcontents, and now we’re training war hardened soldiers to put them there?
Opinions?
The Real Teletubbies
Tags:Sexy, Technology, Television
15,000 Posts on MCS
Sometime in the last week, we broke the 15,000 posts mark here on MCS. Yay! Thank you all for stopping by and making the site such a lively place. I love all of you like the unique little snowflakes you are! How did you happen to learn of m[c]s?
Ekranoplan Madness…
Ekranoplans are Russian “Ground Effect” planes, aircraft that rely primarily on the high pressure zone created underneath an aircraft flying very close to the ground, for lift, instead of from air flowing around it’s wings.
It’s a very efficient, though impractical, means of flight, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was the most stable launch platform for a space shuttle… But based on this pic, the Russians, at some point in the past, would apparently have disagreed vigorously with me…
www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/scariest-bus-ride.html
J. Robert Oppenheimer
When World War II began, Oppenheimer became involved in the efforts to develop an atomic bomb, which were already taking up much of the time and facilities of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley. He was invited to take over work on neutron calculations, and in June 1942 General Leslie Groves appointed Oppenheimer as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project.
Under Oppenheimer’s guidance, Los Alamos laboratories were constructed. There he was managing more than 3,000 people, as well as tackling theoretical and mechanical problems that arose.
He is often referred to as the “father” of the atomic bomb.
Golden Gate Bridge – refracted
Tags:California, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, Science!
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, as refracted through rain drops on the window of an automobile, which act as lenses. In optics, refraction occurs when light waves travel from a medium with a given refractive index to a medium with another, whereupon the wave’s phase velocity is altered, causing the wave to change direction; its wavelength increases or decreases but its frequency remains constant.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/GGB_reflection_in_raindrops.jpg
Aidan “Brute!” Hughes Art
Tags:Military, Music, Politics
KMFDM – Brimborium Cover Artwork
Magnetic model of earth.
Copy pasta from Popular mechanics. (They explain it better than i can)
“Researchers at the University of Maryland have constructed a 30-ton sphere that spins at more than 90 mph to generate magnetic fields. The 10-ft.-dia. sphere is filled with 13.5 tons of liquid sodium to mimic the Earth’s liquid-iron center core. A 3.3-ft.- dia. stainless-steel sphere inside the larger one counterrotates to approximate the motion of the planet’s solid iron inner core. The action of Earth’s inner liquid produces a magnetic field that makes compasses work, deflects harmful cosmic rays and protects the planet from solar wind. The field reverses every couple of hundred thousand years. By using a model instead of a computer simulation, scientists hope to determine how these reversals occur and predict the next one.”
