Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Your Guide To Easy Reading



-WELCOME, GENTLE READER-

And Lo! An index was born.

!NEW! posts are marked accordingly. History. Science. Fiction. Horror. Comedy. Pop Culture. Commentary. Interviews. DIY's. Lots to see here so look around and have fun. 

My Amazon Author page with three collections of my favorite short works, 
along with my science fiction novel "Saint Five" CLICK HERE 
 
I also have an occasional YouTube channel. CLICK HERE. 

If I you laughed, learned, found something new, or just liked what you read then please consider supporting my work by buying me a coffee. It is much appreciated and I need the caffeine. Thank you.
 

 
Be well! 

And so should you!


FICTION 
 
Awake at a Wake  - in which four people sharing a long history find themselves in a funeral parlor - 
The Wedding Piece (Southern Gothic for Tracey and Alex)
They are at the window again  (It's a love story. With zombies.)
The Death of Joe Average  (What happens when the deathtrap works?)
Potatoes are what we eat. Potatoes are what we ride


HISTORICAL

"The Second Going" by Yeets  

Maggot's Work - A poem. A story. A life.  
A Definition of the Martial Arts
Two Collections and One Novel - Now Available on Amazon 
Speak Loudly, Do The Ghosts We Carry  
This Thanksgiving I am Thankful for YOU 
Goodbye, Stan. EXCELSIOR!  
The Stranglers meet the Mystery Men  
ALL FIXED! THANKS, POLITICS!   video
Dear Dear.  A trail cam vid and 150th post!      video
A Rocket, A Tesla, and Some Horse Poop Walk Into a Bar   
How Creativity Works   
'He said, She said' aka 'Coyote Argument, Mostly Chemical'   video
Something to Chew On About Zombies and the Living  
Hello Kitty and the Vermont Comic Con 
Wise Words, Parallel Worlds 
Happy Fourth of July (with a few well deserved shout-outs) 
Of Life and Gratitude (not my usual kind of post)
I Am the Terror That Croaks in The Night
Predatory Remains of the Calcium Kind
My Everyday On This Planet 
Welcome to Night Vale, the All Hail tour 2017  
Happy New Year 2017, Humanity!
We Want Your Business
STOP READING THIS BLOG 
Baby It's Cold Outside: Revisionism, Clickbait, and Bullshit. Any Questions?
Did You Hear That?



INTERVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS THAT NEVER HAPPENED

Digging for an Oak Island interview  (Attempted)
Robert Clotworthy: You Know His Voice 
The 12,500 yr old Interview. Kind of…    (Graham Hancock attempted)
So this guy on the Great Space Coaster walks up to me at a con…  
This Interview Would Have Been Bullshit   (Matt Page aka Master Ken attempted)
Here’s to hope! (Tsoukalos attempted)
Strongarm Interview 3: Dr. Steel 
Strongarm Interview #2 Smeff 
Strongarm Interview: John "Widgett" Robinson



STUFF YOU MAY FIND INTERESTING

Trying to bring Kung Fu movie sound effects into the real world video  
Doctor Strange 2 to be MCU's first horror film. Sweet. **(overdue 2024 update) 
Funko's Alien 40th Anniversary Breakfast Cereal
Star Trek TOS Set Tour: Set Phasers to IMPRESSIVE!
SCP-4082 "Real Heavy" (A SCP submission. REJECTED)
Farewell Steve Ditko, Harlan Ellison, and Cinamon Hadley
Cinemassacre interviews Joe Bob Briggs. A post for fellow B-movie fans.
Skyrim on Alexa: The joke that FUS RO DAH'd into reality 
How I Built My Floating Deck on Uneven Ground    video 
The Nightmare Before Christmas on Broadway?   video
Proof of Time Travel. YOU CAN RELAX NOW! 
Touch My Anchor and I'll F*#% You Up! 
Slowing It Down   video
Where is your center?  video
My Captain America Shield is done!   video
The Circle of Internet Life
Cooking With Vsauce
Geek Moms and Geek Dads  
Hail! Our new Alien rulers!  
WALL-E you look at that! 
TAKE MY MONEY. LEGO® Scooby-Doo Sets and...YOURS?!
(Not new anymore) NEW STUFF NEW STUFF NEW STUFF



IT INVOLVES ME FOR SOME ODD REASON
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Sunday, December 3, 2017

Voyager 1 fires thrusters silent since Jimmy Carter was President

Copyright NASA


November 4th, 1980. Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Jimmy Carter to become the 40th President of the United States

November 8th, 1980. Voyager 1 fires its trajectory correction maneuver thrusters (a secondary system called TCM's for short) to tweak its Saturn pass-by after launching on September 5, 1977.

Copyright NASA
 
November 28th, 2017. NASA attempts to fire up the TCM's after 37 years of silence only to learn THEY WORK! After BILLIONS of miles in space exposed to dust and radiation and solar winds THEY WORKED! I'm lucky if my riding lawn mower starts on the first try after a single winter. And that's after a three-hour prep.

Here's some of NASA's press release. Click >>  Voyager  << for the full piece.

"On Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017, Voyager engineers fired up the four TCM thrusters for the first time in 37 years and tested their ability to orient the spacecraft using 10-millisecond pulses. The team waited eagerly as the test results traveled through space, taking 19 hours and 35 minutes to reach an antenna in Goldstone, California, that is part of NASA's Deep Space Network.

Lo and behold, on Wednesday, Nov. 29, they learned the TCM thrusters worked perfectly -- and just as well as the attitude control thrusters.

"The Voyager team got more excited each time with each milestone in the thruster test. The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all," said Barber, a JPL propulsion engineer."

NASA is trying to extend the work life Voyager 1 by a few more years. Adjusting the orientation of the probe -via the thrusters- will bring its antenna dish back into proper alignment with Earth to improve the probe's data stream. FROM 13 BILLION MILES AWAY. I LOVES ME THE CAPS LOCK KEY! For the full mission history visit NASA's Voyager 1 Mission Page.

Keep this in mind, this probe and its sister Voyager 2 were launched in September 1977 using late 60's/early 1970's tech. The people who made these had 8-track players in their cars, wore bell bottoms, and still managed to hit multiple targets over 746 million miles away (1.2 billion km) away. For my younger readers, let me put September 1977 into historical/pop culture perspective.

By September:

* Star Wars is six months old.* Apple as a corporate entity is ten months old.
* Jimmy Carter has been President for ten months.
* Tandy's TRS-80 home computer hits the market that same month.

That same year:

* January's television viewers tuned into a new mini-series on ABC called Roots.
* March saw humans finally realizing Uranus has rings.
* April's music scene sported the debut album of a group called The Clash.
* May saw the opening of both Chuck E. Cheese and Space Mountain.
* July saw a twenty-five-hour long power outage in New York City. That did not end well.
* August saw the Space Shuttle Enterprise make its test flight, SETI picks up the "Wow!" signal, and Elvis dies, er, fakes his own death.
* September saw the drafting of the Interpol copyright warning we see at the beginning of movies.
* October sees the effective wiping out of smallpox.
* December saw the first children's cable channel called The Pinwheel Network. You know it today as Nickelodeon.

The Walkman and Pac-Man? About two-years down the road in the future. You get the idea.

Let's take a little tour thanks to the Voyager, and by extension all the men and women who made it possible.


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Thursday, June 16, 2016

Cooking with Vsauce



If you've read even a passing number of my blogs (which of course you should) it is not hard to discover that I enjoy sharing knowledge. The video above is a recent post by Youtuber Micheal Stevens, better known as Vsauce, which I am sharing because he is one of the sources I go to for knowledge.

Michael tackles science, philosophy, technology, enigmas, and a wide range of other intellectual subjects in a way that is fun (shocking!), interesting (gasp!), and leaves you wanting more (utterly crazy!).



I encourage you to watch his videos and perhaps even subscribe to his Youtube channel.  Discover for yourself why 10.5 million people have already subscribed and why he has garnered over a billion views.

It is a wonderfully amazing world out there, my friends, and you are part of it.

Go explore!

Be seeing you,

Sam
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