I just downloaded a functional .22 pistol

In two months' time DEFCAD has garnered more than three thousand visits an hour and nearly a quarter-million downloads.  What makes up the bulk of that traffic?

Guns, guns, guns.  Parts for guns.  Accessories like suppressors.  Ammo casings for NATO and Warsaw Pact small arms and rifles.  Even combat munitions like hand grenades.

And they all work too.

Provided you've a 3D printer, the right materials and a few other items that can be bought at most any hardware store, you or anybody else can spend a nice relaxing evening or weekend putting together a small arsenal in your home office.

Sorta brings whole new meaning to desktop publishing a magazine, huh?

I just downloaded a .22 single-shot pistol from DEFCAD, designed by a user named "caboose".  The entire ZIPped-up file was over half a megabyte.  I don't possess a 3D printing setup but in the future, that will probably be a standard appliance in many homes.  I may take a stab at it then, if not sooner.

There's an intriguing article at Venture Beat about DEFCAD, including an interview with site founder Cody Wilson.  Among other things he notes that DEFCAD is getting lots of visits from foreign countries.  Might we speculate that at least some of that is from places with stringent gun control?

Why smuggle in weapons for your revolution when you can just get it off the Internet?

'Course, this will probably mean that 3D printers are soon to become a restricted technology.  But hey, "when 3D prototyping is outlawed..."

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When worlds collide? Comet C/2013 A1 may hit Mars next year

2013 is promising (or threatening, depending on the stock one puts in omens) to be an incredible year for comets in our sky.  Depending on where you live there are two and maybe even three of those cosmic iceballs that may give us quite a show.  In a few short weeks Comet PANSTARRS will become visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere: perhaps more brilliant than any in more than a decade.  Comet Lemmon, found late last year, could turn into a moderately bright beauty for our friends south of the Equator (and certain gases in its tail are giving it a green color).

The big, big show is still to come.  This fall brings Comet ISON... and it could be one massive honker of a spectacle, folks!  If you remember Comet Hyakutake in the spring of 1996 and how enormous it was (I'll never forget how it looked during spring break at Elon College), ISON could possibly eclipse that.

And now there is Comet C/2013 A1 waiting in the wings: a visitor from the far-flung reaches of the Solar System that might... emphasis on might... have repercussions for places close to home.  Namely, Mars.

Comet C/2013 A1 (credit: Carl Hergenrother)

C/2013 A1 was first spotted by Robert McNaught in Australia early last month and since then astronomers have been scrambling to figure out where it came from and where it's going (the comet, not Australia).  More observational data is needed to crunch the numbers but as things stand now, C/2013 A1 (can't we just call it "Comet McNaught" like we would have in the old days?) harbors a possibility of colliding with Mars on or around October 19th, 2014.

Hit here for more about C/2013 A1 at Discovery.com's article.

Ever see those photos of Shoemaker-Levy 9 when it smashed into Jupiter in 1994?  It wasn't one complete body: it was a big chain of teenier fragments of the parent comet after it was broken apart by Jupiter's gravity.  The smaller chunks flew into Jupiter like pearls loose from a necklace and you could see the impacts from Earth with even a medium-sized telescope.

Now envision one solid mass of rock, dirt and ice the size of three or four big-a$$ mountains smooshed together, and that mass rushing toward Mars at about 126,000 miles per hour.  Toward the planet next door.

Depending on where you live and the sky conditions, if C/2013 A1 hits Mars, it might well be visible with the unaided eye.

Assuming that it hits Mars at all.  Or that Marvin doesn't get to it with his Illudium Q36 Exploding Space Modulator first...

"Where's the 'KA-BOOM!'? There's supposed to be a C/2013 A1-shattering KA-BOOM!"

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The strange Cold War bar codes across America

The "bar code" at Walker Field, Maryland

Adjacent to the runway of a Navy airfield in Maryland is a paved rectangle.  And within that area are a series of quadrilaterals painted bright white, in pairs and ascending in size.

By itself its existence would be a mystery, or at least a curiosity.  Except that it is one of dozens to be known throughout the United States, with most of those found near military bases and other restricted facilities.  Some remote locations have entire arrays of the "bar codes" stretching for miles toward the horizon.

So what are these test pattern-ish arrangements?  Based on available evidence, they seem to have been put in place by the government during the first few decades of the Cold War.  With tensions high between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the advent of high-altitude aircraft reconnaissance - and then "spy" satellites - became an important asset of military intelligence.  And as with any other system of optics those high-flying cameras needed a means of determining that they were properly focused.

The rectanglular codes, therefore, are apparently intended to calibrate the zoom and resolution of aircraft and satellite photography.  F'rinstance: letting an SR-71 use one to adjust its precision camera before sending it to fly across the Iron Curtain.

From the original article at Mail Online...

Consisting of a concrete pad measuring 78ft by 53ft and coated in a heavy black and white paint, they are decorated with patterns consisting of parallel and perpendicular bars in 15 or so different sizes.

This pattern, sometimes referred to as a 5:1 aspect Tri-bar Array, is similar to those used to determine the zoom resolution of microscopes, telescopes, cameras, and scanners.
The targets function like an optician's eye chart, with the smallest group of bars discernable marking the limit of the resolution for the camera being tested, according to the CLUI.

'For aerial photography, it provides a platform to test, calibrate, and focus aerial cameras traveling at different speeds and altitudes,' the CLUI adds.

'The targets can also be used in the same way by satellites.'

Ironic, aye?  That military secrets from fifty years ago are now wide-out in the open because of that same technology and Google Earth.  Anyone with a desktop or tablet can now view what likely had been classified top secret by the CIA.

I wonder what else might be on the ground across the fruited plain, waiting to be discovered...

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THE WALKING DEAD: "I Ain't a Judas" brings an appreciable respite

Did anyone else come away from this week's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead thinking that regardless of how little time we saw of him, that the highlight of "I Ain't a Judas" was Carl (Chandler Riggs) talking to his father Rick?  Because that's what keeps sticking out most in this blogger's mind ever since watching it last night.

I have said it before and I will say it again: if Chandler Riggs doesn't get an Emmy nomination this year, then I will be more than extremely disappointed.  Carl is a character who has solidly destroyed the mold of child characters on television and Riggs deserves some mighty high accolades for the strength, courage, restraint under stress and sheer wisdom that he has portrayed for such an exceptionally young actor.  Carl is becoming a true leader right before our eyes.  The scene before the opening title where he comes to Rick, telling his dad that he should let go because he's taking on much too heavy a burden: that was pure dramatic gold.

And then there was Hershel's no-holds-barred rant at Rick: he wanted this Rick-tatorship... and it's time that he began owning up to it.  In Scott Wilson's hands Hershel has become the group's sage voice of sanity.  Maybe Wilson will get an Emmy nod too (as well as Norman Reedus).

"I Ain't a Judas" was obviously heavy on Andrea (Laurie Holden) and her moral quandary: whether to return to the friends she has been with since before leaving Atlanta, or to remain at Woodbury with the Governor.  In that regard this was considerably a less action-packed chapter of The Walking Dead than we have gotten used to... but after the past several episodes I think that a quiet respite was needed.  Indeed, perhaps even desired more than we initially realized.  The focus of the episode was squarely on Andrea.  More so even than Merle (Michael Rooker) now becoming officially part of Rick's gang at the prison.

(Something else I noticed: duct tape was used at least twice in this episode.  Must remember to stock up on plenty of it when the zombie apocalypse hits.)

"I Ain't a Judas" lacked the gory violence that usually comes from this show every week.  But it was certainly no "filler" episode either and I think that sooner than later we'll be thankful that we got this.  It's very apparent that Rick and his people will soon be facing war with Woodbury and it's nice to have some time to breathe easy before the conflict erupts in earnest.  An altogether well-orchestrated episode, and it looks like next week's will be even better.

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"Hitler did nothing wrong"

Worst. Wi-fi network name. Ever.

That is a screen capture I made of my iPad this past Friday when I was at Mysticon at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood in Roanoke.  The hotel itself deserves bigtime props for opening up its own wi-fi network to all of the convention goers.  That's what I was doing when I was inside my iPad's network settings and saw... that.  We were waiting for the Peter Davison panel to begin in one of the hotel's ballrooms.  I haven't even made the image a JPG as usual: that's the original PNG file.  All I did was change the file name.

I know wi-fi SSID names need to be unique but c'mon: that is beyond the tasteless.

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Tammy Tuesday: Nose for trouble

Despite a regular and healthy regimen of doggie treats, pieces of ham (leftover from my breakfast every morning) and the occasional flake of popcorn that falls to the floor, Tammy is bound and determined to sniff out more yummy bites!

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We met Peter Davison!

Mysticon 2013 transpired across space and time at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood in Roanoke, Virginia this past weekend!  Among the special guests were bestselling science-fiction author Orson Scott Card (I finally have a signed copy of Speaker for the Dead, the book that dang nearly destroyed my Spanish grade in my sophomore year of high school and I mean that in a good way) and none other than Peter Davison.  Yup, the Fifth Doctor himself!

And speaking of Doctor Who, I have never seen the Doctor and his mythology so represented by fans at a sci-fi convention.  I mean, there were people in TARDIS costumes, fercryinoutloud!  Those were mostly ladies in blue dresses bedecked with windows and the "Police Box" plaque on the door.  There were literally dozens of guys in Eleventh Doctor costumes (including not a few red fezzes), along with a healthy dose of Fourth Doctors, a number of Tenth Doctors and at least two Ninth Doctors.  For the first time in my life I saw a First Doctor costume, a Third Doctor getup and a Seventh Doctor (he even had the umbrella).  I have to say: it was quite refreshing to be at a convention where the quantity of Doctors vastly outnumbered that of Starfleet officers, Jedi Knights and vampires.

But anyhoo, yesterday morning Kristen and I got to attend "Breakfast with the Doctor" in the hotel restaurant.  This was something with very limited attendance but Kristen pounced upon tickets for it as soon as they went on sale.

Here she is with Davison...

And here I am with Davison on Saturday afternoon.  He even signed my DVD of "Earthshock" (which he told us in a panel discussion on Friday was his most memorable Doctor Who story)...

And did I tell you that there were Doctor Who costumes at Mysticon or what?  Here's me with one of Kristen's friends.  She made a crazy awesome Weeping Angel costume that would be hard to keep your eyes off even if the Angels weren't quantum-locked homicidal maniacs!

The very last photo ever taken of The Knight Shift blogger
Chris Knight, who forgot that one must NEVER take his eyes
off of a Weeping Angel.

And a good time was had by all :-)

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