Woll Smoth and Fronds
I got these from community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/20184696.html , but they may have come from somewhere else.
Penguicow
This is an interesting cow sculpture located near to the penguin pool at Edinburgh Zoo. I am led to believe that a problem with cross-breeding penguins and cows, is that the milk Pengui-cCws, or Cow-Guins, produce tastes a liitle too fishy! Also milk-maids find it very difficult to swim across the penguin-pool whilst carrying a pail full of milk.
Stolen completely from: www.flickr.com/photos/12559612@N00/2875271977
TIE Fighter
“The standard mount point for the primary weapons of a TIE craft is just below the forward cockpit window on the main hull ball. Vessels designed for mainly non-combat roles may have a single central cannon with a barrel gauge of several centimetres, but the most common configuration on combat ships is a pair of laser cannons side by side. Placement of guns near the centre of a fighter provides a stable weapons platform and may provide slight advantages to pilot aim. [Central placement is reported as an advantage in performance comparisons between World War 2 fightercraft.]
The laser cannons are usually represented as short cylindrical protrusions from the hull plating. An alternative form of laser cannon takes the form of an orange conical device of a size similar to the cylinder-type cannons. These seemingly simple structures evidently are not the only mechanism involved, because the blast bolts can be shot out in many different directions. Although this isn’t obvious to the eye, something inside the weapons must be capable of swivelling. The pilot may direct his fire anywhere within the field of view without turning his craft, and the tracking does not detectably delay the bolts’ firing. This is a significant advantage over the more static armaments of most rebel starfighters, such as the X-Wing and Y-Wing,
Some models of TIE interceptors and other heavier combat craft mount laser cannons and ion cannons on forward tips or the hubs of the wings. The reasons for this are not entirely clear: there may be tactical and practical advantages in having the cannons widely spaced; or it may simply be a matter of main cockpit ball being too tightly packed with other systems. Direct attachment to the radiators might allow a marginal improvement in the cooling of overheated weapons, or it might allow easier access for maintenance crews. Spreading the fire may improve strafing, and may boost the chances of scoring a few hits even when a few of the linked shots miss. Another possible advantage is redundancy of guns on a partially-damaged fighter: a single grazing hit cannot ruin all of the interceptor’s weapons at once. In any case, most designs with wing-mounted guns already have the standard chin guns; wing guns usually seem to be supplemental.
The bolts fired from TIE laser cannons are consistently green in colour, at least on the military models. Green blaster bolts appear to be exclusive to spacecraft and artillery in Imperial service. The physical significance of this is unclear.” – Dr Curtis Saxton
Captain America Speaks The Truth
I don’t remember where I found this, but for some sophmoric reason, It makes me feel tingly when i read it.
America, Fuck Yeah F-117 Nighthawk
Tags:Humor, Military, Weapons, WTF
Russian Tu-160 Blackjack
The Tupolev Tu-160 (NATO reporting name Blackjack) is a supersonic, variable-geometry heavy bomber designed by the Soviet Union. The Tu-160 is the heaviest combat aircraft ever built. The aircraft is similar to the B-1 Lancer, but 430mph (692 km/h) faster than the Lancer, and possesses greater range and payload capabilities. Produced 10 years later than the B-1, it flies at 10,000 ft (3,048 m) lower maximum altitude.
Its pilots call the Tu-160 the “White Swanâ€Â, due to the surprising maneuverability and antiflash white finish of the aircraft.
Wildfire, Big Sur, California, 2000
A wildfire encroaches on a tree in California’s still wild Big Sur. Strict zoning laws and a limited water supply ensure that the area has not become overly populated, and nature, too, has done her part to keep developers away: In 1997 a fire raged in the Santa Lucia Range for three weeks. Big Sur naturalist John Smiley calls the wildfires simply “another type of weather.”
photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day
Two Giant Galaxy Clusters Collide
Tags:APOD, Science!, Space, Wallpaper
Explanation: What happens when two of the largest objects in the universe collide? No one was quite sure, but the answer is giving clues to the nature of mysterious dark matter. In the case of MACSJ0025.4-1222, two huge clusters of galaxies have been found slowly colliding over hundreds of millions of years, and the result has been imaged by both the Hubble Space Telescope in visible light and the Chandra Space Telescope in X-ray light. Once the above visible image was recorded, the location and gravitational lens distortions of more distant galaxies by the newly combined galaxy cluster allowed astronomers to computationally determine what happened to the clusters’ dark matter. The result indicates that this huge collision has caused the dark matter in the clusters to become partly separated from the normal matter, confirming earlier speculation. In the above combined image, dark matter is shown as the diffuse purple hue, while a smoothed depiction of the X-ray hot normal matter is shown in pink. MACSJ0025 contains hundreds of galaxies, spans about three million light years, and lies nearly six billion light years away (redshift 0.59) toward the constellation of Monster Whale (Cetus).
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Imperator-class star destroyer
“The hull number of the star destroyer Entor (CVS 1049) indicates either that in excess of a thousand star destroyers of this class have been built, or that this is the 1049th built by its particular shipyard. According to the reports of Rebel Alliance historian Arhul Hextrophon (in The Imperial Sourcebook) the Galactic Empire has a about three to five dozen or so destroyers in an average sector group fleet, of which there is at least one for each of the Empire’s thousands of sectors. This indicates that the local territorial fleets alone account for tens of thousands of star destroyers galaxy-wide. It should be noted that though Hextrophon’s reports have proven to be error-prone on many occasions; they consistently tend towards gross underestimates of Imperial naval and military strengths. The true number of star destroyers is probably much greater than the values he implies. In addition to the vessels assigned to particular sectors, there must be uncounted numbers attached to Imperial High Command and elite roving forces such as those of some Grand Moffs, and higher officials such as Lord Darth Vader.” -Dr Curtis Saxton
Parallax View
Parallax
Parallax causes the reflection of the sun in the water to appear directly behind the street light, even though it appears much higher than the light in the sky. The location of the virtual image is below the surface of the water and thus simultaneously offers a different vantage point of the street light, which appears to be shifted relative to the stationary, background sun.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Picture_of_the_day/September_2008
A Map of the Internet’s Black Holes
This map was commissioned by Reporters Without Borders, which also publishes a World Ranking of press freedom. As the list of the 15 internet-restricting countries (followed by their ranking on said list) indicates, internet censorship is a strong indicator of press censorship in general:
1. Maldives (144)
2. Tunisia (148)
3. Belarus (151)
4. Libya (152)
5. Syria (153)
6. Vietnam (155)
7. Uzbekistan (158)
8. Nepal (159)
9. Saudi Arabia (161)
10. Iran (162)
11. China (163)
12. Myanmar/Burma (164)
13. Cuba (165)
14. Turkmenistan (167)
15. North Korea (168 and very last on the list)
strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/170-a-map-of-the-internets-black-holes/
Cool Blog: strangemaps.wordpress.com/
Dr. Strange
Tags:Comic Books, Fantasy - Science Fiction, Wallpaper
Wandjina Spaceman
In the Kimberley, a remote region in Northwestern Australia, there was a Wandjina Art Period that dates from as far back as 40,000 B.C.E. to about 2000 B.C.E.
www.flickr.com/photos/30435614@N02/2865471704
Catostylus species jellyfish
photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/enlarge/jellyfish-split-level-doubilet_pod_image.html
Command Ships
Tags:Fantasy - Science Fiction, Sexy, Star Wars
“According to The STAR WARS Sourcebook there were four Executor-class vessels in service in the time immediately following the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope. By the time of the Battle of Endor, four years later, their success had led the Imperial Navy to construct many more, acting as standard command vessels throughout the Galactic Empire. Piloting a stolen shuttle to Endor, Han Solo was unsurprised to see the Executor in orbit, acting as the command station for processing security clearances for passage through the deflector shield protecting the new Death Star. When Luke Skywalker announced that Vader was present, Solo responded “Now don’t get jittery Luke; there are a lot of command ships.†Clearly the Executor’s siblings were relatively abundant by that time, or at least no longer rare. Most were probably put to use as flagships for Grand Admirals, Grand Moffs and important Moffs. For instance, the Black Sword Fleet near Farlax sector was led by three Executor-class command ships.” – Dr Curtis Saxton
