DIY

So you're concerned about America's energy future. You don't want to continue burning fossil fuels or homeless people's bodies or what ever you're using and you want to go green. But windmills? The sun? This all seems so utterly gay. Isn't there a way you could harness the power of the sun in a way that didn't involve technology you have on your crappy calculator?

Wouldn't it be better if you could create your own sun and subjugate it to your own will so you could.... watch Tivo'd episodes of Law and Order? Isn't that what a God does? Wasn't creating a fusion mini sun what Doc Ock was trying to do in Spider-Man 2? I think we all remember how well that worked out for him. Shouldn't we be able to do this?

Now, thanks to one man's efforts, we may. Home fusion.

Suppes never slows down, moving from one problem to the next with an irrepressible smile. The workshop is a few hundred square feet sub-let from a roboticist friend in a warehouse one floor above a hassidic clothing factory near Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. "I'm starting from nothing, I mean nothing," says Suppes, "There's no reason I should be doing this. It's ridiculous on all levels." What he's doing is building a Bussard Polywell fusion reactor.

That's from the beginning of a fascinating Gizmodo article on one Mark Suppes and his fusion efforts. Worth your time. The BBC also did a piece on him.

I tell you this because he may solve the world's energy needs, he may fail, and he might succeed but create a new sun somewhere in the vicinity of New York City. Which might be bad. Irregardless, we as a country need more of this behavior. Less people arguing whether or not evolution exists, questioning the scientific consensus on global warming, or even just questioning basic science itself, and more people saying "Fuck it, I'm building a sun in the den. Honey, hold my calls."

Let's get going on the future, people.

Good news eneryone

So what's the first thing you want to hear about a new BP strategy to collect all that oil that's everywhere there used to be water? Is it this?

BP's latest plan to capture the oil gushing from the runaway Deepwater Horizon well poses significant safety risks for "several hundred people" working aboard the ships that will process the corralled crude, the oil giant has told the Coast Guard.

Hmmm. Continue.

With so many vessels working in a relatively small area, Suttles wrote that there's a risk of a "major surface accident." Video of the site Sunday showed more than a dozen vessels on the scene; a jet of burning natural gas perhaps 200 feet long shot from one.

Ahh. Massive oil, oil fumes, ships, people, and fire collected in a small area. And, given BP's normal level of safety, combined with the surely cut rate level of safety that will be required of a hastily thrown together plan, as well as the fact that there's no properly tested or designed equipment to try this new plan, or that there's all the junk and garbage BP threw down the pipe floating around that could clog up this equipment, there's a larger than usual risk of explosion, death, and the Gulf turning into a oil and dead animal soaked inferno.

Eh. Is that actually going to make this situation even marginally worse? No. Onward with the dangerous plan. I hope everything doesn't explode. Though, given the planet's luck throughout this whole incident I'm expecting that this will somehow set the atmosphere on fire or accelerate global warming to the point where the ice caps are melted fully by August.

Video of the day

Felix Baumgartner will try to do this:



And try not to end up like this:


Worth a try I'd say. Good luck to him.

Atlantis v. Hubble

The NASA space shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope are seen in silhouette, side by side during solar transit

From the Big Picture blog, the "most dangerous mission ever."

Broken In Brief: Former astronaut angry over NASA’s “most dangerous mission” space shuttle talk

CAPE CANAVERAL—Today famed astronaut and second man on the moon, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, launched a formal complaint over NASA’s repeated use of the phrase “most dangerous mission” to describe the efforts of the Atlantis shuttle to repair and upgrade the Hubble telescope.

“Are these people shitting me?” a distraught Aldrin was heard to yell during his demonstration outside Launch Complex 39 of the Kennedy Space Center. “They have the stones to tell me that a lens replacement is more dangerous than what I did? I went into low-Earth orbits wearing a glorified scuba suit inside a washing machine designed by honest-to-God Nazis. Hell, my goddamn cell phone has more computing power than every Apollo mission combined. Seriously, the balls on these people...”

“They even have a separate shuttle fueled up and ready to launch in case something goes wrong,” the American hero continued as he pitched rocks at the front door of the complex. “You know what the rescue plan was for Apollo 13? A fancy tombstone, that's what. Want to know want what backup procedures and safety tests we had? A monkey going around in a centrifuge. Once. Replacing a lens is dangerous? Tell that to Alan Shepard. For his first Mercury mission they tied him to a rocket with twine, gave him a belt of scotch, and told him to hold his breath.”

“Most dangerous? Someone come out here and fight me!” screamed the aeronautics pioneer and former senator as authorities attempted to talk him down from atop the fiberglass replica of Apollo 12 that sits in front of the facility. Neil Armstrong was unwilling to offer comment, as he was busy scouring the nearby Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge for "anyone else who wants to tell me I walked across a fucking sound stage and not the moon."

Spokesmen for NASA were quick to point out the marketing aspects of the phrase, as well as the need to prompt interest in space flight as enthusiasm for off-planet exploration wanes. They said they hoped to be able to speak with Aldrin, in an attempt to comprehend what it was like when NASA spoke to the highest ideals in the human spirit instead of low orbit fix-it jobs, ferrying scientists into the clutches of stranded Russians suffering from space madness, and ushering in the robot apocalypse.

Of Atlantis and Anacondas

OMG! Did Google Earth find Atlantis?
When trolling the oceanographical floorography on Google maps an man, purported to be someone with enough time on his hands to look at ocean topography on Google Maps, saw a what appeared to be a gridded network about the size of Wales on the ocean floor just off the coast of Africa. It was immediately apparent what this man saw: ATLANTA ATLANTIS!!!!!!!! Duh! There is no other explanation. Except for the one Google gave about it being sonar remnants from their ocean floor mapping they did for Google Earth 5.0....which they did in grids. Or the fact that Plato's opium induced deranged ramblings scholarly works described Atlantis as a series of concentric circles.

I think we all know what's going on here. Coverup!!!!! Google wants Atlantis to themselves. This is how it all ends, first Google gets Atlantis, then the Bermuda Triangle, then Nessie, then Bigfoot, then they start genetically breeding them and arming them with the retro-futuristic technology of Atlantis and the ships and planes from the BT. Worrying about Skynet is for amateurs. Worry about Google branded Bigfoots in 1942 fighters with laser guns.

Photograph shows 'giant snake' lurking in Borneo river
Thinking of traveling to Indonesia for a nice vacation? Good, I just hope you like getting eaten by hundred foot long snakes with dagger teeth. They caught a photo of the giant beast as it enjoyed a nice swim down the river to eat a village of cute children. The Telegraph isn't sure if it is really a giant snake, perhaps a boat, or even.....a fake, but they are willing to publish it and run it. Inconclusive aerial photography strikes again!! Already the villagers are terrified, dubbing it Nabau, and will be worshiping it imminently.

I just hope this has given you a proper fear of rivers. Oceans are the domain of giant fucking sharks, rivers are the domain of giant fucking water snakes......and also sharks that swim upstream. Christ, here in Pittsburgh, we've got three rivers. There could be three massive snakes patrolling the waters as we speak, dragging yinzers to their deaths. Stay safe, stay vigilant. The snakes can't eat us all.

Broken News: Biden's first weeks as VP spent dodging increasingly elaborate booby traps

WASHINGTON—In the week and a half since Barack Obama's inauguration, the young administration has been hard at work trying to put its agenda into action. But one man has been surprisingly absent from these efforts: new Vice-President Joe Biden.

While it naturally takes some time for any new administration to get up to speed, sources are claiming that Biden's notable absence is the result of an increasingly elaborate set of deadly booby traps and killing devices that the new VP has devoted his time to dodging.

Insiders immediately fingered former VP Dick Cheney as the man behind these mechanical death dealers. However, extensive document shredding by the office of the former Vice-President, as well as Mr. Cheney having "gone off the grid,” have given White House staffers little hope of learning the full extent of the horrible machinations hidden in and around the Naval Observatory, White House, and various places of government business.

“Christ, we just don’t know where the next one is coming from,” remarked Biden’s Chief of Staff and head of the disarmament team, Ronald Klain. “We knew to expect some of these, like the giant axe that swung from the ceiling when we opened the door to the Vice-Presidential office. Or the buzzsaw blades that come out of the floor when you step on the white tiles in the main Observatory foyer. But every time we locate and neutralize one, two more pop up the next day!”

Klain pointed to last Wednesday’s “desk chair incident” as an example. On Tuesday evening staffers had disabled a mechanism in the Vice-President's office that caused a giant log to swing from the ceiling into the person seated in the chair. On Wednesday morning an aide sat down in the chair while laying out briefing packets for the day, setting into motion an ejection apparatus that threw the first year aide out the window and onto the spiked metal fencing below.

“How do you defend against that?” an exasperated Klain asked. “How do you double rig a seat? Did he double rig a seat? Did Dick Cheney sneak into the office Tuesday night and jury rig a new trap? Does he have skeleton keys? How come the FBI, CIA, and NSA can’t track him down? This shit is costing me sleep.”

The situation is causing problems for security details at other government buildings as well. As he walked to a Middle East briefing with Secretary Clinton over the weekend, Biden was forced to dive out of the way of poison tipped daggers that shot out of the wall when he stepped on the seal of the State Department on the floor of the Truman Building.

“People walk on that seal every day and nothing happens,” said Herman Gutierrez, chief of security for the State Department. “Presidents step on it, ex-Presidents step on it, the Secretary steps on it, staffers step on it, and nothing happens. Suddenly Biden steps on it and it sinks into the ground and six-inch blades bathed in blowfish venom come flying out. Was it specifically weighted for Biden? Was someone watching and waiting for him to step there? Gotta give Biden credit, though; the old man ducked and rolled like a Judo champ. Wish I could say the same thing about the secretarial pool… so many bodies.”

Further searches of government agencies found a 40-ton stone boulder perched over the entrance to the IRS building, elevator cables cut over at the EPA, crocodiles loosed into the White House cafeteria, and the robotic sentries at the CBO headquarters set to kill anyone by the name of Joe.

With both the Vice-President and Dr. Jill Biden too terrified to continue to stay in the Naval Observatory, especially after engineers discovered their bed was little more than an industrial-sized bear trap with sheets on it, the couple have been moved to an undisclosed location. But with the former Vice-President still at large and God knows how many traps still left undiscovered, the Secret Service are being pressed to formulate strategies for how Joe Biden can conduct the duties of his position without getting blown up, gored by a rhino, or immolated.

“We’re thinking of going with a large bulletproof glass cube in which the Vice-President can reside,” said Frank Monroe, the Secret Service official in charge of Situation Biden. “He eats all his meals there, does all his work there, and the only connection to the outside is a slot just large enough to pass documents and food trays through. Of course, this leaves him vulnerable to gas attacks, but we’ll put in a mask and some oxygen tanks. The only real issue is ensuring Mrs. Biden can be made available for conjugal visits.”

Officials hope to have the cube fabricated and ready for occupancy by the middle of next month, provided Biden survives that long.

The greatest internal threat to our country

Some would say that terrorism is the greatest threat to our country, others would say the financial crisis, the unchecked power of the Presidency, the abandoning of civil liberties, our foreign policy, or Dick Cheney hopped up on mescaline and methamphetamine stalking the streets with a rifle and a license to kill. Others would just laugh off these so called 'threats' and point to our greatest national horror and potential for crisis: the competent, experienced, diverse, and strong willed individuals that Obama has selected as advisers. You don't even know the kind of trouble these assholes could get us into.

President-elect Barack Obama is assembling a new and influential cadre of counselors just steps from the Oval Office whose power to direct domestic policy will rival, if not exceed, the authority of his Cabinet.

Presidents have long strived to centralize influence in the White House, often to the frustration of their Cabinet secretaries. But not since Richard M. Nixon tried to abolish the majority of his Cabinet has a president gone so far in attempting to build a West Wing-based clutch of advisers with a mandate to cut through -- or leapfrog -- the traditional bureaucracy.

Obama's emerging "super-Cabinet" is intended to ensure that his domestic priorities -- health reform, the environment and urban affairs -- don't get mired in agency red tape or brushed aside by the ongoing economic meltdown and international crises. Half a dozen new White House positions have been filled by well-known leaders with experience navigating Washington turf wars.

But some see the potential for chaos within the administration.

Damn his eyes! How dare he make sure that his priorities like universal health care don't get mired in bureaucratic red tape or ignored as the focus turns to the raging tire fire that is the economy. Making sure priorities get passed......that way leads to madness. And nominating experienced hands who know how to navigate the corridors of power and through turf wars? What the fuck was he thinking?

Worse yet are his plans to try to co-ordinate vast policies that span a myriad of agencies, like environmental policy or health care policy, with one "quarterback" who will help manage and implement the larger goals with interdepartmental co-operation. Someday we'll look over this smoldering wreckage of planning, co-ordination, integration, implementation, and focus and wonder......why didn't anyone sound the alarm bells? Why couldn't things have been done in the opposite way, like during the Bush Administration? Well, you warned us Washington Post. You did.

Bush bright ideas department

Bio Lab in Galveston Raises Concerns

How a laboratory where scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg ended up on a barrier island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc puzzles some environmentalists and community leaders.

“It’s crazy, in my mind,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. “I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.”

Officials at the laboratory and at the National Institutes of Health, which along with the university is helping to pay for the $174 million building, say it can withstand any storm the Atlantic hurls at it.

Not content with super hurricanes, Bush feels we need super hurricanes that hurl horrifying, rare, organ liquefying diseases at the populace with gale force winds. We're sure he isn't a Bond villain right? Has he built any unstable nuclear reactors on fault lines or in unstable volcanoes? No? We sure? TNT factory next to a school? I'll take your word for it. So, gulf coast......uh...yeah....enjoy your next hurricane. Shit, I mean Ebolacaine. The rubble in your house will have Marburg virus on it. Rubber gloves and goggles, people.

Oh noes, teh danger!

From the new Republican robocall annoying people nationwide, the true danger of an Obama Presidency:

Hello, I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC, because Democrats are dangerously weak on crime. Barack Obama has voted against tougher penalties for street gangs, drug-related crimes, and protecting children from danger. Barack Obama and his liberal allies have a disturbing history of coddling criminals. so we can't trust their judgment to keep our families safe. This call was paid for by the Republican National Committee and McCain-Palin 2008 at 866 558-5591. Thank you, bye

They don't want to protect kids from danger. When the giant teetering boulder is about to fall on little Jimmy, Obama shrugs his shoulders. When the Republican Congressional Delegation is holding a meeting right by the National Boy Scout Jamboree, will liberals step in and say "No child diddling, ne'er-do-wells"? When the crazed wildebeest herd is stampeding towards St. Anne's School For Especially Adorable Orphans, will Obama use his special African powers to tame them? No.

He's objectively pro-child danger. Hell, he hands out knives at school rallies. Can we risk this man as President, with his hate of safety, with the ripping out of all the child proofing you did for your baby? No, he derides your Mr. Yuk stickers, places your TV's on wobbly stands, and rips your plug covers from the wall. He only coddles crooks, not kids. Take heed. There's danger abound.