Archive for April, 2009
Man, these viral movie promotions are going too far…
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, PR Guy, Rant/Rave on Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Robot attacked Swedish factory worker – The Local.
The incident took place in June 2007 at a factory in Bålsta, north of Stockholm, when the industrial worker was trying to carry out maintenance on a defective machine generally used to lift heavy rocks. Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the man approached the robot with no sense of trepidation.
But the robot suddenly came to life and grabbed a tight hold of the victim’s head. The man succeeded in defending himself but not before suffering serious injuries.
“The man was very lucky. He broke four ribs and came close to losing his life,” said Leif Johansson.
Test with a new blogging tool
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Hey, I really like this article over on Astroengine, so let’s make it part of the test.
Why is the term “failed star” synonymous with brown dwarfs? On the one hand, brown dwarfs lack the mass to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores. On the other hand, who said brown dwarfs were trying to be stars? Who ever said that becoming a star was the pinnacle of stellar living? Perhaps brown dwarfs are perfectly happy the way they are. In a world of equality and political correctness, brown dwarfs could be viewed as “over-achieving Jupiters”, or gas supergiants…
John Holdren’s first interview
Posted by Grg in Grg's Reference, Science Fandom, Sincere Apologies on Thursday, April 9, 2009
This is the first I’ve heard about asking the Chinese to shuttle our astronauts to space. I wonder where this came from…or if Holdren was just speaking off the top of his head. But why the Chinese when we have a number of home grown outfits, like SpaceX, looking to do the job? Why the Chinese over the Russians, who are particularly good at getting people safely to orbit?
The other question I have is about nukes. I don’t believe we necessarily need new nuclear weapons, but is that the job of the science advisor to decide and not, say, the military? Of course, as Holdren points out, our national labs have a broad research portfolio, not just nukes.
But that’s just one bit of the interview, its fairly in-depth and well worth the read.
And, in other Holdren news, AP is reporting that he has an interest in geoengineering .
I’m a little nervous about fiddling with the global climate, especially before we know exactly how everything plays out. What if we make matters worse? Why not wait until the damage is done? I don’t believe in irreversibility, that just doesn’t make sense…not on a geological scale, at least, but maybe that’s only irreversible on a human scale.
Here’s my plan, millions of acres of space solar panels. We’ll block out a fraction of the sunlight reaching Earth and generate safe, clean power. Sure, you say, we’d never be able to build the x gazillion solar panels we’d need to block the sun. Maybe they don’t have to all be solar panels, maybe its just a few gazillion acres of some sort of dimming fabric…in addition to the solar panels. Think of all the stimulus money that could be spent on the solar/space industry!