First photos of Venus’ (the planet) transit

Venus transiting across the Sun (Photo-LexieCannes)

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — These photos were taken an hour into the transit. There will be far better pictures showing up in the coming days, but I took these with my smartphone and I thought I’d give everyone a quick look. The transit will last until approx 9 PM PDT or sundown, whatever comes first for you. The next one will occur over 100 years from now.

More info (my thanks to Lynda Barry for this link): http://spaceweather.com/

Venus transiting across the Sun (Photo-LexieCannes)

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Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, photo, sun, transit, venus

Okay . . . maybe going a bit airborne here?

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — My guess here is that this homemade tail attachment is an attempt to squeeze a few more miles per gallon out of the car — hypermileage is what they call it.

The vehicle is a Geo Metro and the year looks right for it to have a 3-cylinder engine. These cars weigh next to nothing and they always get over 40 MPG and 50 MPG is achievable.

The tail appears to be constructed out of sheet metal — perhaps aluminum with a wood frame and a clear plexiglass top (I suppose to see out of the back with). There appears to be foam insulation.

Did the car achieve hypermileage? Good question. In it’s current configuration, I vote no. The plexiglass is cracked and straps of lumber is holding it in place. Also the surface area where the tail is attached to the car isn’t “clean” (smooth) — this is vital to achieving hypermileage.

However, the laws of physics indicates this is a very unsafe car. The level principle likely makes it possible to push down on the tail and lift the front tires off the ground with this design. The huge sail area on such a light car will make it easy for the car to get blown off the road by wind, oncoming traffic or passing traffic. Likewise, the large sail area will make it hard to change direction at speed. And finally, there’s the issue of lift — the thing has a shape of a wing — go fast enough, the thing may get airborne — the rear wheels anyway.

I didn’t get to talk to the driver, but he was leaving Fry’s (a computer and other electronic gear retailer) — I’m hoping he bought some design software and is headed back to the drawing board!

Geo Metro with a Pope Hat.

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Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, Stupidity and Dubious Achievements, 3-cylinder, geo, geo metro, Humor, hypermileage, metro, miles per gallon, mpg

[UPDATED] Diesel flavored drinking water and methane vapor showers — what the ‘fracking’ is this?

Care for some diesel flavored well water? (photo: Casper Star-Tribune)

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — (Updated: Ohio earthquake caused by fracking waste? – see below.) If I hadn’t seen it on 60 Minutes, I wouldn’t have believed it. Some people have been living for years with groundwater likely contaminated by ‘fracking’ — a mining process to get natural gas out of rocks deep in the ground. The CBS report centered on a small town in Wyoming where the EPA recently did a study of groundwater after a decade of complaints.  While the full study won’t be released until 2012, they have announced that ‘fracking’ probably contaminated the well waters in that area.

Fracking is the use of high pressured water infused with chemicals pumped underground to crack the rocks holding natural gas. This process is likely to be the cause of gas seeping into the groundwater. The mining industry was quick to dismiss the EPA findings: “They don’t have a conclusion here, they have a probability — and we would argue that it is a very poor probability . . .”

A glance at news reports show that issues with drinking water and fracking is occurring in other states as well. I’m thinking we need to do a full-scale study of the problem nationwide and conclude one way or another whether fracking for energy is good for our nation’s water supply. Meanwhile in that town in Wyoming, drinking water is trucked in and residents take showers with the fan on.

More from the LA Times:  EPA says ‘fracking’ probably contaminated well water in Wyoming – Los Angeles Times.

Updated Jan 4, 2012: Recent earthquake in Ohio likely caused by fracking: “Scientists have quickly determined that the likely cause was fracking—although not from drilling into deep shale or cracking it with pressured water and chemicals to retrieve natural gas. Rather, they suspect the disposal of wastewater from those operations, done by pumping it back down into equally deep sandstone.” – Scientific American

Read more: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ohio-earthquake-likely-caused-by-fracking

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Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, contaminated water, diesel flavored water, epa, fracking, natural gas mining, ohio earthquake

$150,000/yr Kansas state position goes to man with fake diploma.

Jim Mann, new Kansas IT chief, has fake degree from diploma mill. (AP photo)

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT –  The new IT chief officer hired by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has a degree from University of Devonshire — one of the grandaddies of diploma mills according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The resume of Jim Mann, the new IT officer, states his Business Administration is from there and also states he attended the college from 1993 to 1995.

The Topeka Capital-Journal: The university isn’t among accredited institutions in the database maintained by the Council of Higher Education Accreditation in the United States. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education in the United Kingdom does not list the university tied to Mann as an accredited school.

Wired magazine says: “The school was owned by American residents in Romania, used mailing address in the United Kingdom, printed materials in Israel and banked in Cyprus. One estimate placed at 70,000 the number of degrees sold in the United States by their University Degree Program doing business as University of Devonshire and a series of other names.”

The governor’s spokesperson, Sherriene Jones-Sontag said this: “Jim Mann was hired based on his more than 20 years of top-flight, private-sector experience, information technology is a constantly changing field where the best preparation is private-sector experience.”

IMO, keeping a employee with a fake degree on the payroll, especially one paid with taxpayer monies a huge mistake.

Do you agree?

via State IT chief’s degree from unaccredited college | CJOnline.com.

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Filed under: Everything else, Science, Technology and the Environment, Chronicle of Higher Education, Council of Higher Education Accreditation, diploma mill, fake degree, fake diploma, Jim Mann, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Sam Brownback, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, University of Devonshire

Netflix sucks up one third of Internet bandwidth!

Bandwidth hog and video store killer.

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — Well, that’s a sobering bit of information, but there’s more: video consumes 1/3 of of peak mobile traffic — most of that is attributed to YouTube! Yep, the stuttering video on your smart phone is caused by other mobile users watching video as well.

Is this fair for other users? There may be a shake out on this. However, video is driving mobile technology — we’re getting better phones as a result of people’s desire to watch video on their phones.

More factoids: Real-time entertainment and apps bandwidth usage approach two thirds of peak traffic, and in North America only 45% of the traffic goes to PCs or laptop — most go to mobile or game consoles type devices!

Netflix takes up 32.7% of Internet bandwidth – CNN.com.

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Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, bandwidth usage, internet bandwidth, mobile technology, mobile traffic, mobile users, netflix, smart phones

Tokyo radiation hot spots exceed contamination level around Chernobyl.

"Radioactive" placard -- required on all vehicles transporting ANY amount of material having radiation.

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — 22 out of 132 areas tested in Tokyo exceed level set for contamination zones around Chernobyl. A baseball field exceeded the level by a factor of 5. A church, almost 25 times. These findings were made by The Radiation Defense Project and the Isotope Research Institute in Japan.

Believed to be spread by wind and rain, nobody really knows how many hot spots there are in Tokyo because officials seemingly don’t want to believe radioactive hot spots can form so far away from Fukushima, the site of the nuclear meltdown.

Nuclear experts though, including some in Japan are trying to get this reality back on the front pages. Some, including the man who recorded the shocking amount of radiation at the ball park, moved his family out of Tokyo to a city 450 miles away. Decontamination, they say, needs to begin at the high level hot spots before they become health hazards and contaminate the food chain.

Radioactive hot spots exceeding Chernobyl levels in a major city in the United States would prompt outrage from all areas of the populace. The Japanese people deserve no less attention than what we would give the matter.

More details:

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/08/22/tokyo-soil-cesium-radiation-chernobyl-dead-zone-limit-919100-bqsq-meter-detected-63141/

Research findings in a .pdf:

http://doc.radiationdefense.jp/dojyou1_en.pdf

Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, chernobyl, contamination, earthquake, fukushima, Isotope Research Institute, japan, meltdown, nuclear, radiation, radioactive, The Radiation Defense Project, tokyo, tsunami

Machines win! Final score: Mobile Devices 327 million, Americans 315 million.

Chips inside an iPhone.

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — Whether its the sign of the times or a dubious achievement, cellphones and mobile devices outnumber humans in the United States. This is according to CATI — a wireless trade group’s semiannual survey.

While separate accounts for work and personal use account for a large number in this tally, the expectation to be mobile connected in our society is fueling the rise in new accounts and devices.

Consumers are buying devices despite economic woes and high employment. Insiders are now saying wireless service has become the LAST item they’d give up in a personal budget crunch.
Welcome to the future — clothes, food, shelter, cellphone.

Related: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2016486359_devices13.html

Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, android, cati., cellphone, iphone, mobile connected, mobile devices, wireless service

Our seven sisters in the sky (the Pleiades star cluster).

Seven Sisters (the Pleiades) star cluster. (photo: Stanislav Volskiy)

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — The Seven Sisters star cluster  is easily seen the naked eye by most of us in the Northern Hemisphere — visible in the wintertime almost directly overhead sometime during the night. More formally known as the Pleiades, its visible through most cities’ light pollution as well. The cluster of 7 stars take up an area about the size of two full moons. The cluster lies near the zodiac belt which means the planets and the moon (and the sun as well) travel by it frequently making it easy to spot or identify planets!

Click on the link to see the entire image — I cropped it for this blog.

Image Credit & Copyright: Stanislav Volskiy

APOD: 2011 September 21 – Pleiades Deep Field.

Seven Sisters (the Pleiades) star cluster. (photo: Stanislav Volskiy)

Filed under: Everything else, Science, Technology and the Environment, astronomy, astronomy picture of the day, pleiades, seven sisters, Stanislav Volskiy, star cluster, The Pleiades

French aviation agency BEA condemns release of transcript — ‘Damn it, we’re going to crash’

The "black box" from Air France Flight 447

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — Air France Flight 447 which crashed mysteriously over the Atlantic ocean over two years ago is now mostly blamed on clueless and inept pilots. The flight recorders (Black Box) sat on the ocean floor for most of that time until recently. Transcripts of the recording clearly shows the pilots blundered some of the basic rules of flying known to even to the newest private pilots and non-pilots with basic knowledge of aviation:

In one extract [from the transcript], a co-pilot says: “Climb, climb, climb.” But his colleague answers: “But I’ve been pulling back on the stick for a while now.”

In a computer-generated voice, the plane’s warning system keeps repeating the word “Stall!” – (From CNN)

France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis, the BEA, did say the pilots failed to tend to the matter regarding the stall warnings, but the BEA has  condemned the flight recorder transcripts disclosure because it shows a lack of respect for the crew members.

I disagree. If two pilots failed to recognize a stall while repeatedly being told they were in one and end up killing 228 people, a lack of respect is the last thing an aviation safety agency needs to concern itself with. Indeed, this recording ought to be played at all flight schools, just to burn in the brain of new pilots — jetliners stall with the same amount of ease as single engine light aircraft.

Just to show you how clueless the pilots were, 3 seconds before the crash one of the pilots said: “Damn it, we’re going to crash, this can’t be true!”

More from CNN:  AF447 pilot: ‘Damn it, we’re going to crash’ – CNN.com.

Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, air france, atlantic ocean, aviation af447, black box, crash, flight recorders.

Mega Sun Storm Brings Mega Auroras

An aurora shot in Sept. 2011. (photo: Darren Horn/National Geographic)

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — Some of the best aurora photos ever taken as a result of recent high sun storm activity have begun to surface on the net. The National Geographic website has a fantastic collection of photos shot by people from around the world.

Of course, these storms cam create chaos with our satellite communication systems, but we’ve appeared to have survived!

From National Geographic: Strong solar storms—such as the September 26 CME that triggered this week’s auroras—can also hit low-Earth orbiting satellites with potentially damaging solar particles and magnetic fields, according to NASA.

See photos:  New Aurora Pictures: “Severe” Sun Storm Brightens Skies.

An aurora shot in Sept. 2011. (photo: Darren Horn/National Geographic)

Filed under: Everything else, Science, Technology and the Environment, aurora, darren horn, magnetic fields, national georgraphic, satellites, solar particles, solar storm

Drive-by-photos — Nike, have you fed your overseas employees today?

The Nike Gulfstream V captured in this recent telephoto photo.

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — In this telephoto shot today, the Nike Gulfstream V corporate is seen waiting in front of the Hillsboro, Or. Nike Air hanger for passengers to arrive. The aircraft is rarely visible — its either inside the  hanger or flying. While Nike is one of the better companies in the treatment of production employees around the world, keeping Nike (and other corporations) on their toes by letting them know we’re watching can ensure that it stays that way.

The cost for one is around $65 million and it supposedly burns around 350  gallons of fuel per hour. The Dept. of Defense has a number of these to fly their brass (and the Secy. of Defense) around the world.

From wiki: The Gulfstream V was one of the first “ultra-long range” business aircraft. Capable of carrying up to 16 people in standard seating configurations, and able to fly up to 6,500 nmi (12,000 km), the GV became the longest range business jet ever made (at the time of its introduction).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulfstream_V

 

The Nike Gulfstream V captured in this recent spy photo.

 

Filed under: Politics, Science, Technology and the Environment, gulfstream, hanger, hillsboro, nike, nike air

Steve Jobs passes.

Steve Jobs

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — This is just off the wire at 4:45 Pacific Daylight Time — Steve Jobs loses his battle with pancreatic cancer.  A spokesperson said he died peacefully and was surrounded by family.

I’m surrounded by devices Steve Job championed or invented, including the mouse I’m holding in my hand.

Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, apple, mac, mouse, steve jobs

Twitter research show that, yep, we are crabby on Mondays.

According to Twitter we are crabby on Mondays!

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — Not only that, these emotional tones follow a pattern through the day, week and even seasons. Emotions brighten shortly after rising in the AM with a lull in the afternoon follow a rise in the early evening. These patterns transcend cultures around the world suggesting that our moods have an underlying biological rhythm in common.

This study was done by Scott Golder and Michael W Macy drawing on messages from 2 million people in 84 countries using Twitter.

One of the researchers’ cv: www.redlog.net/golder_cv.pdf

Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, biological rhythm, emotion, emotional, Michael W Macy, research, Scott Golder, tones, twitter

Fire up the DeLorean, faster than light travel is here, maybe.

Currently DeLoreans are being sold for $14K and up on eBay,

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — There is a report that scientists have broken the Einstein light speed limit, and if true, opens the door to, ahem, time travel without cheating (wormholes). There are, of course, practical limitations which I’ll get into later, but first, the claim by a group of scientists who supposedly managed to accelerate a particle a fraction of a second faster than the speed of light, must be replicated. I understand that several scientists are trying to do that now to confirm this discovery. However, if this claim cannot be duplicated, then the “discovery” is false regardless of whatever the original scientists announced. Therefore you may want to hold off on the purchase of the DeLorean until the verification is made.

If indeed particles can sped up to exceed the speed of light, then in theory, one can send matter to arrive ahead of an event travelling at light speed. In other words, you and your DeLorean arrives somewhere and you already know what going to occur shortly after arriving.

Of course, there are tech issues to overcome — accelerating even a pound of material close to the speed of light will require most of the energy available on this planet, then there are the G-forces to contend with . . . But let’s not get too carried away just yet. At the moment, let’s see if anyone can replicate this claim before putting down a bid on eBay.

Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, back to the future, delorean, einstein, faster than light, time travel

Finally, Boeing’s first 787 Dreamliner is delivered, 8 years after proposal.

Japan's All-Nippon airline takes delivery of the first Dreamliner.

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — It seemed like we started from scratch and got a man on the moon faster than it took Boeing to get this plane from paper to the customer.
Yes, its a great looking and highly advanced plane with over 800 orders for one on the books, but for this aviation fan, advances in aviation technologies seem to be slowing to a crawl.
The twin engine configuration may be approaching a technological wall. Perhaps its time to start with a clean slate and come up with something entirely different. How about it Boeing?

Filed under: Science, Technology and the Environment, 787, aviation, boeing, dreamliner