When Satellites Collide

Like a scene from the Japanese TV series “Planetes“, a Russian and US satellite have collided in orbit. Early in February a non functional Russian military satellite (Kosmos 2251) and a US Iridium communications satellite occurred temporarily disrupting the Iridium communications network. An on orbit spare will be brought into service within the next 30 days. So far this isi the first accident of it’s kind, where a satellites has struck another satellite and not just orbital debris (paint chips, fuel tanks, etc) hitting working space hardware. There was that Chinese missile test where they destroyed a non functional weather bird but that was intentional (and also caused quite a mes up there). Hopefully the junk left from the recent accident will burn up, if not it will become part of the cloud of over 17,000 objects that are currently tracked by ground stations.

Original story:
Russian and US satellites collide

Whoa… Cool Rockets!

These are so fantastic! As a fan of the ‘golden age of science fiction‘, this is what I envision spacecraft of that imagined far flung future would look like.

Cool Rockets is a line of resin-cast, hand-finished rocket ships, all inspired by the styles of the 40’s and 50’s rockets from comics, TV, and toys. Created by Jeff Brewer, a film and special-effects modelmaker in northern California, Cool Rockets offer a unique collection that is handmade, unique, and more affordable than you’d think. All the designs are original inspirations of an era, not copies of some vehicle you’ve seen in a movie or TV show.

Cool Rockets

This is Why You Are Fat…

I spotted this while on Twitter today. Neil tweeted this site that just has me stunned. The name says it all. ‘This is why you are fat’. Yeah. I told my daughter “Not even Jesus and his invisible rainbow colored dinohorse could eat this stuff and expect to live. He’d have to heal himself after every bite.” She replied that he’d have to heal himself after just thinking about taking a bite. I think she’s right. Excuse me, I’ve some DIY angioplasty to do after looking at this page. Ugh.. (“Turbaconucken”?!?! What the was the creator of that monstrosity on?)

This is Why You Are Fat

Striped House Makes Neighbors See Red

I don’t see a serious problem with this but then again I’m not Japanese. I don’t have conformity drilled into my brain since birth…

Striped house makes neighbors see red

I don’t see a serious problem with this but then again I’m not Japanese. I don’t have conformity drilled into my brain since birth.

Renowned manga artist Kazuo Umezu (official web site) decided to go against the flow of his countrymen and painted red and white stripes on his new home. Rather fetching I say. His neighbors were not amused by his artistic antics and did what pissy neighbors do best, took him to court. After the case was reviewed by a judge the house was deemed to attract attention but not to destroy the view.

“Umezu, who attended court wearing a red-and-white striped tie, told reporters after the ruling, ‘‘I would like to live showing respect to others.’’”

Ha! Take that you repressed geezers!

Court turns down neighbors’ plea for cartoonist to remove stripes from house

Mechanical TV, Steampunk Style

Steampunk mechanical television

Steampunk Mechanical TV
This is a wonderful project to build a working Baird mechanical television (televisor) that uses, among other things, a real working steam engine and a record as it’s ‘Nipkow disk’. It’s a great idea, Steampunk with real steam, I can’t wait to see some stills from it.

Mechanical TV has been an interest of mine for years now. The very idea that in  the primordial age of television the best solution was a big spinning disk and a flickering neon lamp. I have a model of a Baird Televisior that I built from a kit. It benefits from modern electronic timing and low voltage parts (LEDS not neon bulbs). It clearly works but only produces the most rudimentry of moving images. I have transcoded a few video clips to play on it (it comes with an audio CD of video sequences) and for what it is I’m impressed. I still want to build a camera that I can use to display live motion on it. Perhaps I’ll design it with a Steampunk theme.

SteamTV Part 1 — first looks at my newest project

DIY Plane from a Broken Helicopter

I had a toy helicopter that had lost it’s tail rotor in an unfortunate accident. I didn’t want to part with it because the main rotor still spun and heck it’s a remote control helicopter. I proceeded to turn the once state of the art in toy chopper technology (OK, once of state of the art) into a regular airplane. This is a photset of my ‘proof of concept’ adventure.
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