How to bake bread in space

Space travel can be boring. Voyages to Mars or the Asteroid Belt may sound exotic and exciting, but the fact is that most of the time there’s not much to see and not much to do. Wouldn’t it be great if morale on these long missions could get a boost by a reminder of home like fresh baked bread? Thanks to NASA’s “Space Apps” program, that might one day be a reality. Sixteen-year old “citizen scientist” Sam Wilkinson has come up with a way to make bread simply and efficiently using carbon dioxide and a slow cooker that is designed to work within the limitations of a spaceship’s galley... Continue Reading How to bake bread in space

Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future: Mekon of Mekonta

Click here to listen

Spectre

Welcome to the 13th century

The locomotive of the future

I've had this story on the peg for a couple of days and now that I've read it, I'm amazed at its awesomeness in terms of sheer stupidity.  Apparently, some nitwits have come up with the idea that the wave of the future is to pull trains with steam locomotives running on "green" "biocoal".

What is biocoal?  Let MSNBC enlighten us:

The biocoal is based on a so-called torrefaction process pioneered at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. To make it, woody material — in this case trees — are heated in the absence of oxygen. The resulting flaky matter is then rammed together under high pressure to create coal-like bricks.

In other words, it's charcoal.

I was gobstruck by this.  First off, as an archaeologist, I've seen the effects of a charcoal economy and it isn't pretty.  Trying to power even a pre-industrial society on the stuff will strip the woodlands bare in a few decades, but on a modern scale?  It isn't possible.  

And that isn't the stupid part.  This is: The locomotive these nimrods are going to use to test their fuel on is an oil burner, so they have to rip up a vintage piece of technology and convert it to burn solid fuel.

Excuse me, but if you're so keen on testing charcoal as a fuel, then why not ship a few tons to Yorkshire where there are any number of coal-burning steam trains still running on heritage lines that you could use–or you could if the drivers didn't give you an earful of why it's a daft idea.

He did warn us

When cows want to party

For those who think that living in the country is all bucolic and peaceful, we present this episode of half a dozen cows who crashed a party in Boxford, Massachusetts:

The cows decided to help themselves to the Miller Lite and Bud Lite that the frightened, but uninjured partygoers left behind. “I saw one cow drinking the beer on its way down as it spilled off the table,” Lt. Riter reportedly said. “Some of the cows were also picking through the empties in the recycling bin… They just went in and helped themselves.”

Not only are cows mean drunks, but they have awful taste in beer.

SpaceX returns

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spaceship returns to Earth after an historic visit to the International Space Station.  Not only is the United States back at the top tier of space exploration with a man-capable vehicle, but it's one built and operated by a private company and more are joining the race.

I've said it before, but it looks as though we're entering a new era where what NASA or other government space agencies do will have less and less relevance as time goes by.

The Day the Universe Changed: Part 3: Point of View

UFO: Timelash

“Intelligent” goggles highlight obstacles for the visually impaired

Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (UC3M), Spain, have developed a pair of “intelligent” goggles that make getting around a bit easier for partly-sighted people, by providing them with Terminator-style vision. Using a pair of cameras mounted on a virtual reality headset connected to a tiny computer, the device scans the area ahead of the wearer and displays information about the scene as color-coded outlines that convey the distance and shapes of objects that are difficult to otherwise see or interpret... Continue Reading “Intelligent” goggles highlight obstacles for the visually impaired 

Newspeak dilemma

Don't worry, doublethink will solve it

Fat is evil... Calling people overweight bad... Fat  ungood... Overweight ungood... Must condemn... Must not offend... Class enemy... Victim group... No viable alternatives... Paradigm shifting... No clutch....  Alert... Alert...

Defined out of existence

More than just a degree and  the right toys

Robert Weisssberg looks at how social "scientists" in the 1960s redefined the Middle Class in a way that ignored what actually makes someone Middle Class in favour of a set of criteria based on theatrical props that made social mobility as unlikely as saying that putting a crown on a monkey will make it a king.

Andrew Klavan: The New York Times Answer Man

Lying Liars

Unhelpful

Deputy Prime Minister Nicholas "Nick" Clegg says that talk about hordes of refugees swarming from the Continent in the event of the Euro collapsing is "deeply unhelpful".

If you're part of a government that allows 250,000 immigrants, mostly illegal, swarming into Britain every year, then the prospect of facing an even larger wave due to your continued support the entire European Empire project that any sane person can't see as anything less than barking mad, then someone pointing out your utter uselessness might be "deeply unhelpful".

But that depends on to whom it's unhelpful.  For the rest of us, it's as helpful as raising the alarm on the eve of invasion.

CCTV

Coping with life in modern Britain.

Cozy Dryer

Yanko Design (The DREADCO of the design world) proves that it's still on the cutting edge with this radiator that you can (drum roll) dry your clothes in front of!

Apparently, no one at Yanko has ever visited a school dorm or cheap hotel room.

The Adventures of Captain Marvel: Part 4: Death Takes the Wheel

NASA asks future explorers to respect historic landing sites

When the last American astronauts blasted off from the Moon in 1972, it seemed as if they were leaving behind monuments that would stand for all time. On a lifeless, airless satellite there would never be any scavengers or souvenir hunters, no wind to bury or wear down the abandoned spacecraft and artifacts, and no air to corrode metal. Even the footprints would still be there millions of years from now. Or so everyone thought. Now, with more and more nations and private organizations planning manned and unmanned missions to the Moon, NASA is worried that the Apollo landing sites and others could be endangered by the next wave of lunar explorers. To prevent this, the space agency issued a set of guidelines that politely asks everybody to keep their distance... Continue Reading NASA asks future explorers to respect historic landing sites

Watermelons

Just finished Watermelons, James Delingpole's excellent book on the "green" movement and how it has free-fallen from people concerned about clean air to an anti-Western, anti-industrial, anti-Capitalist, anti-human Socialist movement that has grabbed on to the fallacy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and turned it into a all-purpose bludgeon to force people to abandon civilisation and liberty in return  for... nothing, really.

Delingpole makes a multi-pronged attack on the movement including its origins, the duplicity of those behind it, the cod science that supports it and the ludicrous nature of  the precautionary principle.  He shows how it is possible to understand the scientific arguments and their flaws and that "don't worry your pretty little unqualified heads" is not an argument.  He also reveals what is at stake in this battle, for battle it is, and that if the worshipers of Blessed Gaia have their way, we will all suffer.  Most importantly, he explains how global warming is just one position that the Left will happily surrender when the time comes to fall back to a new bogey man.

Written in his usual irreverent style, Watermelons is must reading for anyone who needs to swot up on the arguments in a weekend.