Al Fin: "Cowboy Commentary", aka "Eat your veggies" The Flag banner is posted in order to defy those who would make patriotic symbols illegal or disreputable.
But something that launched from the ground? Nope...
The Starship could put massive amounts of material into space. All it would require is that someone be willing to fund the
project.
Using small nuke devices to power it through the solar system is entirely feasible. But that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong. Even
I could be wrong sometimes. heh, heh, heh
According to this video, we're going to have to hold our horses on this one for a bit longer. Now that the FAA has
got its hands into it, it will be awhile; for the government never moves fast.
A couple more days, it will be 4 months since the first launch. More than likely, it may well be 4 more months before
the next launch. That means some time deep into December.
But there is always the possibility of surprises.
Actually, the Angry Astronaut has a point. If something this big has a malfunction, it could get really nasty. Better
to err on the side of caution. It's a mighty big rocket that could go BOOM in a really big way.
SpaceX could be testing the crap out of this thing for the next four months, and then a lift off MIGHT be permitted.
The hot staging ring has been stacked on to booster 9. Spacex submits launch mishap report for the first launch
back in April. Those two are the biggies.
There may be some more testing of the booster on the launch mount, which could include another static fire.
Plus the full stack will need to be tested before the next launch.
The launch can be no earlier than August 31st. Just my opinion here that the government is not known to be fast.
They have to review the mishap report and then they'll have to go from there.
If there are no surprises, there may be a launch in the next month. But it's getting closer all the time.
That is, what makes it terrifying for the author of the video.
The movie isn't scary to me. It is mostly unpleasant. It isn't scary, because it is all too obviously meant to
be scary. If you can see through it, it loses its power. At least that is my explanation.
But it is definitely unpleasant. You have things like a beautiful naked girl arising from the shower, and then that
girl turns into a hideous and hysterically laughing, diseased old hag. Disgusting!
Then there was the scene with the guy in the wolf mask. It wasn't until this video that I finally got what was intended
there. It didn't look like a wolf mask. It looked like two dudes in bed, and one was dressed up in some sort of
weird costume. I didn't see anything bloody or anything like that. What's so scary about it? It's just repulsive.
The elevator flowing with blood just wasn't plausible in any sense.
There was some mildly scary stuff with Wendy's discovery of Jack's "writing". He is obviously insane at this point,
and he's threatening her. You wonder if she's going to be able to get away from him.
The scene where he is chasing Danny in the maze may be somewhat scary, but that is also somewhat implausible. How does
a little kid outwit his father?
All of this leads to the question of "what could have been done differently"? Evidently it is truly scary for others,
but not for me. I would think that something to be truly scary, you'd have to be a part of the scene somehow, and find
it believable. Maybe that's why it doesn't scare me. It is too obviously intended to be scary that it gives itself
away as a scary film. That's not scary unless you don't think it's obvious.
Barry Goldwater really walked into it. If he had avoided the use of the words "extremism", he
might have made it impossible to typecast him as someone to fear.
I note in the comment section that people approve of this phrasing. But the phrasing was easy to attack and mischaracterize. That's why
you have to be careful about how you phrase the things you say. This sounds like Goldwater was praising "extremism", and criticizing
"moderation". Very easy to attack, so LBJ produced the "Daisy commercial".
What can make it so easy for the leftists to attack is to give them the tools to do it with?
the original post follows:
It is remarkably modest speech that got mischaracterized as the ranting of a mad man.
Why?
A couple lines that made it sound like he favored extremism over moderation. That's it.
On the basis of this, and perhaps a few other quotes like it, LBJ was able to win in a landslide.
The lesson?
A modest guess: Few people could have watched this and concluded that they were witnessing the rantings of a madman. The only way they could have been alarmed is by what they were told to be alarmed about.
With that in mind, I can only conclude that if people are as gullible with respect to the news media as they were in 1964, Trump may well meet the same fate.
But Reagan did win in 1980. He won by saying many of the same things Goldwater did here. The lesson there is that it can be done.
It's that time of year again, and hopes are really high in H-Town. Let's see how that holds up. It didn't hold up for very long last
year...
I watch a lot of videos in order to get a feel for what's going on with this team. There was a lot of hype of C.J. Stroud, but that
has gotten rather quiet after his underwhelming appearance against the Patriots. The news is rather quiet, but now a new approach is
being attempted.
Cody Stoots is acting the part of a stock trader here... He's giving the "stock up" and "stock down" recommendations.
I dunno. Maybe you can get an idea from that. Maybe I just like to raise hell with people. Making a bit of fun of these guys.
Somebody mentioned playoffs.... Playoffs?!? Reminded me of this
A lot of torque and horsepower isn't needed in a basic car. Acceptable performance would be sufficient if the result
could be an affordable and sensible automobile.
Good things might be possible in small packages. Let's say that you reduced the battery capacity to minimize the weight
of the batteries. True, it would necessitate frequent use of the range extender, but who cares?
The idea would be efficiency. Electric engines can start on a load, whereas an internal combustion engine cannot. It
only takes 20 horsepower or thereabouts to cruise at highway speed. Most of the time, you just don't need all that
much horsepower. If you had an engine that could produce a lot for short periods, that would be ideal. Especially if
it didn't weigh much.
The upper range of today's batteries would yield a kwh for every 8.3 lbs of battery. If the battery is limited to
5 kwh, that would weigh less than 50 lbs for the battery. You could put together a decent drive train for a modest
amount of weight. Add a generator and an ultracapacitor. Surely you could put it all together with decent performance
for not that much weight. A sub compact internal combustion engine type car could be about a ton. Perhaps you could
do it this way for about that much.
Less weight means less fuel expenditure, too.
Comment:
There's a lot of nerdy stuff here...
Bottom line seems to be that to get sufficient torque, a supercharger is needed. That's because of low-end torque.
An idea popped into my head while watching this. What if you were to use this engine as a range extender for a
battery pack? Batteries are way too heavy. If you were to include this small, lightweight engine to a generator,
then it could recharge the battery pack on the fly. Shoot, you may be able to downsize this engine even more than that is. In order to cruise at highway speed, it is only necessary to have 20 or so horsepower.
The most power needed is to get moving. To keep moving doesn't need nearly as much power. That's why it could be
useful for range extension. If the thing were small enough, it would presumably need not that much power to generate
the necessary power to recharge the battery pack, or to take over electrical generation, or both.
The light weight design would save weight from all those batteries. It would need some support mechanisms, such as
a generator. Also, a tank for fuel needs to be included. Again, these may be small enough to keep some weight savings,
so the replacement of batteries doesn't get you back to a too-heavy vehicle. A little further on the video reveals that there
is a 125 CC engine of this type. It generates 28 horsepower. Cool!
Advantages: Simplicity, low-weight, and compact design.
"You know these guys always come up with the most ridiculous hypercars with horsepower numbers that are just straight-up insane, but this time they've created an electric motor that's somehow smaller than your head but makes 330 horsepower. Yep, you heard that right—330 horsepower! This is the Koenigsegg Quark E-Motor, and it's an absolute game-changer."
It would be interesting if this Swedish automotive company is interested in a mass marketed car that could employ some
of these ideas into something affordable and a bit more modest.
embbedding disabled, unfortunately, click on link and view it on YouTube
I'm coming up a blank on material again. Not only that, but I'm getting tired of all the bitching in the "conservative"
media. It isn't going in the right direction, I suspect. Nor is there any sign that it is going to start.
Rather than let that affect me in negative ways, I'm going to have to spend my time elsewhere. That means my blogging
is going to have to go elsewhere, and maybe even go away entirely.
But there are things out there still that could provide some material. If all else fails, and it looks like it can,
there's always sports. That's what sports are for, to provide a distraction from the humdrum of daily life. Immerse
oneself in the excitement of rooting for a team of your choice.
As long as I am considering making changes, what about changing football teams? If there's one thing I don't like, it
is rooting for a team that isn't ever going to go anywhere but the dumpster. That'd be the Texans, of course.
Maybe I can study all the teams. I did that back in the late eighties. The game has changed a bit since then. The
country has changed a bit since then. There's a lot of extraneous stuff I don't care for, but aside from some minor
changes, it is pretty much the same.
I wrote a little about the 2023 draft. Impossible to predict what will happen, though. Who'd a figured that the Texans
would trade away so much draft capital for just one guy. You can't figure on that stuff. On the other hand, when it
comes to the Texans, they are like the GOP. They have a great talent for doing the wrong thing. Maybe I ought to
root for the Cowboys.
The Astros are going okay. Not as good as last year, but not too bad. But I haven't been that much into baseball since
I was a kid. The Astros of those years seem a lot like a certain football team of these years. Those years were
frustrating for an Astros fan. Now they are one of the better franchises.
So I might be writing about different things. Might well continue with the Starship stuff. It has gotten light in
the developments recently. Not much there.
Focus Fusion may have jumped the shark for me. The appeal to radical leftists is just too much. Nevertheless, if they
can succeed, it will be a big deal.
My attitude is a bit like the way General George Patton was depicted in that 1970 film. He said that Americans love
a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Why should I tolerate a loser then? I'm sick of it. I won't jump on the
winning side just to be on the winning side. I won't go that far. But I'm really getting sick and tired of this
losing shit. Bitching about it won't change anything. Maybe it is time to move on.
