Friday Ephemera

Cheetah expresses dissatisfaction with TV crew. // Via Coudal, King’s College Circle. Le Grand Mobile. // Air Guitar Pro. For those who take air guitar seriously. Only $27.00 // Going to the opera in the year 2000. A vision of things to come. (1882) // Power for Progress. Nuclear power in comic book form. (1971) // The Atomic Revolution. (1957) // Liquid mirrors for lunar telescopes. // The shadow of the Moon. // The lost cosmonauts. Fallen comrades. // The Socialist Worker is thrilled by the “stunning victory” of Hamas. More here and here. // Study reveals support for terrorism correlates strongly with support for political Islam. Summary here. // Ophelia Benson on Inayat Bungawala. “If we were not treated with respect then we were capable of forcing others to respect us.” With book burnings and death threats. // Tim Worstall on the scapegoats of Polly Toynbee. // Mick Hartley on art bollocks. // Peculiar maps. From imaginary places to the Stockholm Metro. (H/T, Chastity Darling) // Animals on the London Underground. Hens, penguins, elephants. // Via Artblog, le beatbox. Part deux. // The mixtape wallet. // Suck your child’s nose clear. (H/T, Dr Westerhaus.) // A brief history of barbed wire. // When jellyfish attack. // The illustrations of Alexei Vella. Borat, alfalfa, robots. (H/T, Drawn!) // Jack and Dick learn about eyes. (1958) // Via Coudal, Japanese pencil carvings. Honeycombs, spirals and moving parts. // And finally… Minnie, mooching.

Comments

[AntiCitizenOne]

Re: Liquid mirrors for lunar telescopes.

Surely it wouldn't be too hard to heat up the Mercury? Perhaps this would mess up any infrared work but so?

[David]

And there’s the issue of payload weight to consider. I’m not sure how much mercury would be needed to make a mirror of sufficient size – possibly up to several metres across – but mercury is much heavier than the “ionic liquids” being worked on. And, of course, much more toxic.

[AntiCitizenOne]

Oh and here's the welsh alternative to pencil carving!

http://www.carvingpatterns.com/spoons/spoons-1.htm

WRT Mercury mirrors.

a cubic meter of mercury weighs 13,545 (.850)KG

a 6 meter diameter mirror has a surface area of 28.27 meters

so 5 centimeters of depth would need 1.41 cubic meters of mercury weighing in at 19,149.9942 Kgs

OK it might be easier to extract mercury from lunar soil instead!

[David]

Thanks for the calculations. I’m guessing 1.41 cubic metres of mercury is not only weighty but expensive too. And it’s a matter of deep personal shame that I was unaware of the existence of Welsh love spoons.