perfidy

Liquid armor will soon be available in a store near you. As we reported some time ago, in a post I am too lazy to find, University of Delaware scientist Norman Wagner invented a remarkable material that is composed of polyethylene glycol and nanoscale bits of silica. The developers call it a "shear-thickening liquid," one which stiffens instantly when struck, and then re-liquifies instantly once the stress is gone. New materials for armor have been the focus of constant research ever since the introduction of Kevlar back in the seventies. While Kevlar flak jackets offered a significant degree of protection, astute observers have always been aware that Kevlar armor has never been able to protect from rifle fire, or even all shrapnel. Kevlar armor has been reinforced with everything from steel to ceramic plates in an effort to improve protection, but the sad result of most of these efforts was to greatly increase the weight of the armor. Researchers have also attempted to use a variety of other synthetic fibers, and even cloned spider silk, but these efforts were unable to produce anything noticeably more effective than Kevlar.

Armor Holdings, inc., a company until now primarily concerned with supplying the Army with vehicle armor, bought the rights to this technology, and hopes to be selling suits of liquid armor by early next year. At first, Wagner thought that the liquid armor might be applied almost like peanut butter, in a relatively thick layer. But experimentation showed that the greatest protective effect was achieved by applying many very thin layers of the liquid to sheets of Kevlar. The shear-thickening effect of the liquid is enhanced when the liquid is embedded in layers of Kevlar - the force of a blow is spread wider, resulting in greater protection for the wearer. By greatly enhancing the stopping power of Kevlar - less is needed. AH hopes that its new armor suits - with liquid armor sandwiched between two layers of ballistic fabric - will be significantly lighter than existing models. And, amazingly, it will also be cheaper to manufacture. The first target of their sales effort will be prison guards, for the reason that liquid armor will stop knife attacks - something even the best Kevlar has never been able to do. AH hopes that troops might start getting theirs by the end of 2007.

Liquid armor hasn't been alone in the field of advanced armor concepts. Back in 2005, we heard that Israeli researchers had developed a nanomaterial that was five times stronger than steel. A detailed and informative article can be found here, but there has been little news since. The Israeli nano-armor is rigid, and can take shock pressures of at least 250 tons per square centimeter and remain unmarred. That's fairly impressive. They are reportedly working on a newer version of the material - one constructed on the same principles (nanoscale inorganic fullerenes) but with a different base; Titanium Disulfide instead of Tungsten Disulfide. If this pans out, the resultant improved nano-armor should be even stronger, yet weigh a quarter as much.

If all of this research and production bears fruit, we could see American troops significantly better protected in a matter of years. That is, of course, all to the good. The introduction of lightweight, and - importantly - truly bulletproof armor could have a great effect on the conduct of military operations. Those who are interested in this sort of thing, and I am certainly one, spend our free time pondering how technology has changed warfare, and how it continues to change warfare today. We often focus on the complicated products of our computer and military industries. UAVs, missiles, missile defense systems, lasers, VTOL fighters and multi-billion dollar warships. Armor for the infantryman might not seem as big a thing, but it could be much bigger.

Imagine a Marine. He has ApNano armor covering his head, torso, arms and legs. His helmet and armor is made of a material capable of deflecting a shot from a .50 caliber machine gun at close range. The joints between the hard armor are protected by liquid armor cloth. While not as effective as the hard armor, it will fully protect him from smaller caliber weapons and most shrapnel. Imagine further that all this armor weighs half what the current Interceptor plus K Pot weighs, thanks to the miracle of advanced materials science, the whole armor system weighs in at a miniscule 20 pounds.

This Marine is mobile. His lightweight armor does not impede his movement, and does not overtire him. It affords him near invulnerability from anything save vehicle mounted weaponry or artillery. And unlike armored vehicles like the Stryker, he is a much smaller and harder to hit target.

His opponents are armed, mostly, with AK 47s and the like. They can’t kill him with those. What does this remind you of? It reminds me most of all of Cortez and the Aztecs. Cortez’ soldiers in their steel helmets and back and breast armor were invulnerable to all the weapons the Aztecs had. The Aztecs couldn’t kill the Spaniards unless they caught them alone and overpowered them. And we all know what happened to the Aztecs.

US Troops are already vastly superior to most actual and potential opponents in terms of doctrine, training and weapons. The effect of this superiority is, typically, lopsided casualty rates, especially during “regular” phases of combat when all of America’s advantages in air support, mobility, intelligence and training come into play. Where our opponents gain back some ground is in static insurgency warfare where improvised munitions and house to house combat remove much of our high tech gimcrackery from the equation.

How different will urban combat operations be when a soldier can enter a hostile environment knowing that short of a freak accident, the chances of injury are remote? I think they will be very different indeed.

These technological developments promise real body armor. Body armor proof against almost any weapon an insurgent can get and carry. Even if liquid armor and ApNano breastplates don’t happen now, or next year, the research will lead to the real thing in the short term – five to ten years out at the outside. And when it does, and American troops get it, they will have an advantage more powerful than most of the rest of the panoply of modern equipment can provide – safety. It will also be an American advantage, because insurgents won’t have access to it.

In an era where casualty figures are a political weapon, this alone may be a boon beyond price.

[wik] Thanks to the greatUnknown over at Murdoconline for pointing out that it is "shear" and not "sheer." Every single news or popular science article got that wrong. But, if you go back and look at links to the technical abstracts, they all correctly describe the material as "shear-thickening."

I finally got around to perusing the most recent Photoshop Phriday, which Geek Lethal kindly linked the other day. While I certainly appreciate the pic that GL excerpted, I find that I really dig this one:

Seeing that ominous giant fighting robot would normally fill me with fear, as it should any sane human. But somehow, the two US Army Air Corps-style rondels on the robot's chest make it ok. That Robot is clearly fighting for truth, justice and the American way. He'd protect us from the Hun, the Nazis, the nips, wops, commies - and even other, evil, giant fighting robots. He is our friend.

This past weekend, the entire Buckethead clan attended a blogmeet-type get together over at the elegant abode of Miss Princess Cat. My wife, bless her heart, was concerned momentarily about how she should dress, until she remembered that she was going to meet bloggers. That confusion out of the way, we packed the youngsters up and headed into the wilds of Falls Church.

While not the best attended blogmeet ever, there were a sufficiency of guests. Lysander the very nearly ex-blogger was there along with his newly Virginianated girlfriend; Cat, of course; Dawn; and new (to me) were Professor Chaos, Sabre along with her friend; Matt and his dog; and Fruit Girl the gynecologist. Cat set a good table, the appetiser spread was excellent; though the Professor was leery of the bacon-wrapped artichoke hearts. For me, it is a simple equation wrapped in bacon = food. But then, I am a simple man. The fried wings tasted much better than the baked, no surpise there. The taco pizza thingies were delightful once I picked the vegetables off. And the item that Fruit Girl denominated "grease wheels" were very tasty indeed.

I greatly enjoyed talking politics and terrorism with the Professor, if for no other reason than it greatly confused Cat's gynecologist friend. As the Professor consumed more and more, he began suggesting - and later insisting - that Fruit Girl start a blog and call it twattalk. I suggested that perhaps that domain might already be in use, and lo, it is. It seems that Fruit girl will have to go further afield for her blog name. Perhaps fruitytwattalk is available. The final stage of drunkenness for the Professor is, apparently, obsessively quoting from the movie Office Space. It truly was a remarkable performance. He quotes Office Space the way I quote the Blues Brothers. He even admitted that he once tricked a girlfriend into believing that he had never seen the movie, just to mess with her head when they watched it. I used to do that with slasher pics, and thinking of it now, I can't decide which is more low class. In the end, though, we were enablers for the good Professor's issues as we fired up the DVD. I never thought I'd experience a Mike Judge movie with a greek chorus, but wonders really do never cease.

Myself, I drank a bit less, as I had nearly exceeded my July quota of alcohol the night before hanging out with Hill rats over in Arlington. That may have been a fortuitous party, as I may actually get some interesting work out of it.

Two fun nights out in a row - which is damn rare in the world of Buckethead these days - thanks to Cat for the yummy treats, and to whomever brought the Blue Moon beer.

[wik] The Professor wasn't all that drunk. Really. He only imitated the "O" face once.

Hopefully, Tigerhawk hasn't lived in Kansas, so we can make fun of it without fear of hurting someone's feelings.

• We bring "Euclidian" to life
• Bleeding Kansas
• We’re Fucking Flat!
• The Flat State
• Hayfever capital of the Midwest
• Gateway to more Rectangular States
• There's no place like home
• At least we're not New Jersey
• Dole slept here
• Where Science Don't Mean Crap
• When the middle of nowhere is too crowded
• Ya want flat, we got flat
• Birthplace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
• More hills than Nebraska!
• We aren't all that crazy about Newton and his "gravity", either.
• That's Jayhawk, not Jaybird, dipshit
• A couple of universities and a whole lot of nothin'
• To Boldly Go Where No Tourist has Gone Before
• Proud Home of the two greatest actors in world history: Kirstie Alley and Ed Asner
• We kicked Toto's ass, the ingrate

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• Come see our gated community! No, the other kind...
• Home of the Ft Leavenworth Gravel Factory

This year's winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

In a related vein- a throbbing, purple vein- is the 2006 Goku-Lytton Award for the Worst First Line in Erotic Fan Fiction.

Next year the Ministry fully expects to be competitive in either contest.

There's a certain inescapable sense of destiny to being named Thor. Indeed, it's hard to imagine the man from Canada named Jon Mikl Thor doing anything else with his life besides bodybuilding and playing heavy metal music. Such a name is a fait accompli. I mean, really... "Hi, I'm Thor. Have you considered refinancing your mortgage lately?" Not so much.

Some bodybuilders, once their career is over, open gyms. Others go into politics or pro wrestling (same thing). Vancouver's Jon Mikl Thor, former Mr. Canada, Mr. USA, Mr. North America, and Mr. Universe, went into metal. It only made sense. Blessed with a flair for the dramatic, a taste for the faintly ridiculous, and one of the greatest heavy-metal names since Jethro Tull invented the seed drill, His live shows are minor legends of excess, featuring amazing props (winged helmets, chariots) and incredible stunts (bending steel bars with his teeth, breaking bricks across his chest), and he has amassed a nearly thirty-year legacy of B-movie-tinged heavy metal, leaving in his wake a vast wasteland of vanquished demon-foes, busted mic stands, and leopard-print clad groupies panting in wonder at his awesome might.

Thor's latest album is Devastation of Musculation (Smog Veil, 2006), and insofar as it's accurate to say that Thor is growing as a musician (within the confines of traditional metal, anyway), he is. His last album, 2005's Thor Against The World, drew mainly on the glammy sounds of KISS, Alice Cooper and Sweet. It was a damn good album, but there were times when the metallic content dropped lower than might optimally have been desired. It seemed that, for all his talk of epic space-battles and Norse gods, Thor was going soft here and there.

Not so on Devastation of Musculation. The new album is harder, faster, and darker than its predecessor, and is evidence that, after decades of half-jokey and often-forgettable entertainment, Thor is figuring out how to do it right (albeit without sacrificing what makes Thor, Thor). The very first track, "Lords of Steel," stomps along in a Black Sabbath mode and features some very nice extended guitar wailing the likes of which have rarely been sighted since acid-washed jeans went out of style. Maybe it's not the greatest thing ever put on tape, but it's a damned entertaining invitation to bang your head. The rest of the album continues in a similar British Heavy Metal vein, galloping along with an array of galloping Maiden/Priest grooves, while Thor grunts about the Devastation of Musculation, The Queen of The Damned, Odin's Son, and Lies of Eternity in a voice that, for what it lacks in technical accomplishment, more than makes up for in personality and commitment to the moment.

After all, isn't that what metal is about? If you strip the music away from, say, a Slayer album, you're left with what amount to a bunch of supremely silly words. There's nothing inherently scary about

Trapped in purgatory
A lifeless object, alive
Awaiting reprisal
Death will be their acquisition

The sky is turning red
Return to power draws near
Fall into me, the sky's crimson tears
Abolish the rules made of stone

I mean, come on! Every high school has some trenchcoated dork who writes doggerel like this in his notebook and thinks he's being deep! And yet, throw in some manic drumming and heavily distorted guitars and the very same silliness that would get a dark and serious high-school poet laughed at, shunned, and these days examined by a team of psychologists, police investigators and anti-terror "experts," somehow transmogrifies into a pounding, sinister all-time classic of thrash metal.

By the same token, lyrics like the following from Thor's "Queen of the Damned"...

The deadliest of hungers
She feasts on human blood
The rapid sound of thunder
Bringing evil from above
The vampires all surround her
For the final feast
But she still holds the power
Until a new queen is released

... kind of suck out of context. But as hundreds of overly serious college theses and misguided poetry seminars have inadvertently proven, rock lyrics are not meant to exist apart from the music they are sung to. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, right? Write "Louie, Louie, hey, hey, wa ne ga go" on a page, and you've got nothing. But put it over that classic riff, and you've got magic, son. In the same way, once Thor puts his lyrics over thrashing guitars, a double-bass-drum attack, and presents them in his own powerful and guttural voice, those same stanzas become exactly what they should be: the audio equivalent of the best B-grade horror movie ever made (which, by the way, is Evil Dead II. No debate allowed.)

Oh, in case you're wondering, the phrase "Devastation of Musculation" refers to two things: the poorly defined retribution that awaits the foes of THOR as he rides the universe on his steed; and a story that Thor heard about a guy who pumped up his biceps so far with steroids, oil in injections, and heavy reps that his arm actually exploded. According to Thor himself,

"Everyone is under pressure to achieve the impossible every day. People risk their lives to be more beautiful, more handsome, more skinny, more muscular and faster, stronger, richer, and deadlier. Trying to make sense out of these desperate measures is what this new album is about. It is easily the darkest and most powerful album I've ever written."

Coming from a guy who used to pose in poodle hair and tiger-stripe bikini briefs, this kind of statement might be easily dismissed. But, even considering that metal at its finest needs to stay stupid in order to stay metal, there's something to this. Thor seemed to wear a smirk through half the songs on Thor Against The World. On Devastation, there's not much smirking. There's more skulls, smoking corpses, demons, and smoky battlefields. And if the music doesn't necessarily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Number of the Beast, Reign In Blood, or British Steel, it's still the best B-Movie Metal you're gonna find.

If you're looking for subtlety, I suggest you pick up Tool's excellent latest album. But if you're looking for well-done classic metal sung by a former bodybuilder who had the sense to stay out of politics, you're in good shape with Devastation of Musculation. Somehow, now, in his third decade of recording stone-obvious muscle rock for a parade of indie labels, Thor seems to be figuring out how to balance camp and carnage. By any standard, Devastation of Musculation ain't half bad, and as long as you take it for what it is - the aural equivalent of movies like Escape from New York and, yes, the animated classic Heavy Metal, you can do much worse than to heed the mighty word of THOR.

[Crossposted at blogcritics.org]

A recent survey intended to discover Black Holes has come up short. No where near the expected number was detected, leaving astrophysicists scratching their collective head. It is widely believed that the black hole is difficult to find by its very nature. An object so massive that light cannot escape its gravitational pull is of course going to be difficult to find. Space is black. Black holes are black. You do the math.

The conventional means to search for evidence of the black hole in space is to look for indirect evidence – x rays released by matter falling into the black hole before it reaches the event horizon. Falling down a gravity well that steep is an energetic event, the scientists reason. Supermassive black holes are thought to dominate the central regions of galaxies, and the x-ray output of black holes has been considered a primary constituent of the background hum of x-rays we detect in the universe.

A team of European and American researchers has spent two years probing the nether regions of the galaxies trying to find black holes. They investigated high energy xray emissions using the European Space Agency's orbiting International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral). Another high energy survey, and previous low energy surveys all reached the same conclusion – much fewer holes than expected.

This confuses the big domes. But the answer might not be that the black holes are further away, or more expertly hidden, or taking a long nap after consuming all the nearby gas and whatnot that might have created x-rays upon being eaten.

The answer might be that there are no black holes at all.

A different group of big domes was taking a gander at a quasar nine billion light years from earth. In laymans terms, nine billion light years is really goddamned far away. Happily, there was a galaxy in the way, which allowed the clever science monkeys to use the gravitational lens effect, in which the gravitational field of the intervening galaxy magnifies the light coming from the quasar. Further, as all the individual bits of the galaxy wander in front of the image of the quasar, it makes the light wobble. This wobbling allows the scientists to probe more deeply into the inner workings of the quasar.

Quasars are conventionally supposed to consist of a very large black hole consuming the matter around it and generating the extraordinary amounts of radiation that are the defining feature of the quasar. If these researchers are correct, that turns out not to be the case. Theory prohibits black holes from having magnetic fields. You wouldn’t be able to stick your refrigerator magnets to it. Even not counting the fact that they’d be immediately consumed by the gravitational field and converted instantly to x rays.

But this quasar, rejoicing in the name Q0957+561, shows evidence (detectable thanks to the wonderful gravitational lens effect) of some stupendous magnetic fields. Looking at the disc of material surrounding our friend Q0957+561, they noted a small hole in the middle, approximately four thousand times the distance from the earth to the sun, and evidence that that area had been swept clean by electromagnetic fields. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is that there ain’t no black holes.

The reason this is obvious (at least to these researchers) is that there are two competing, and mutually exclusive theories about large massive objects. One is that they are black holes. The other, lesser known theory, is that they are MECOs. MECO is egghead shorthand for Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Object. In brief, the theory holds that singularities can’t form, and when something really big starts collapsing, it gets very dense and very hot. At this point, subatomic particles start popping into and out of existence, pissing off everyone else and creating large amounts of energy. The radiation pressure from this craziness halts the collapse, and the object remains forever a ball of high energy plasma. Plasma, unlike black holes, is quite capable of maintaining magnetic fields.

While these objects are capable of creating large amounts of energy, they probably aren’t going to go about it in the same way. And that might account for the failure of the other astronomers to detect the job lots of black holes they expected. Perhaps the ones they think they are detecting are merely those MECOs that most closely resemble the profile of the theoretical black hole.

And remember kids, just say no to black holes.

Lock S-foils in attack position, and give Jerry hell!

Courtesy of Photoshop Friday at Something Awful.

Iowa. What to say about the Hawkeye state? This should get you going. Discuss.

• Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk
• We hate Texas
• We Do Amazing Things With Corn. Amazing.
• Our Trees Bend North Because Minnesota Sucks
• Just Another Fucking Flat State
• World renowned center for philosophy, music, technology and the arts
• Where Underachievers Can Achieve
• It's easy to spell
• Just east of Omaha
• At Least We're Not New Jersey
• We're not the only state on the Mississippi, but we're one of the better ones
• The middle of nowhere state
• Bank Foreclosure Sales every Friday
• Home of the Duke
• Hell has four letters, too
• Des Moines does't rhyme with Less Coinses''

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• Not as White as Idaho, but Getting There
• What Kennedys Call 'Iower'
• Home of the Radar O'Reilly Fictional Veterans of Foreign Wars Museum
• That place you drove through once, you think

The Ministry of late has not talked much of politics. This could be because the Ministry feels that politics is beneath us. Because we operate on a higher plane, and do not wish to sully our hands with the stinking, encrusted cesspool that is politics. Or, it could be because politics gets in the way of dick jokes.

Our recent reticence to discuss politics is not a hard and fast rule. Its more a guideline. And today, a political item caught my eye. It is perhaps passe to pile on Howard Dean; he of the scream, the pulsating cranial veins, and overheated rhetoric. Shooting ducks in a barrel, some might say. Nevertheless, today's performance before a group of business types in Florida is remarkable even for our Rove-controlled Deanomatic android.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart.

With a lead like that, one could expect to hear soothing, healing words follow. Something about how infighting and rhetoric distract us from sober and responsible discussion of the issues of the day. Maybe a nod toward respecting differences, knowing that human knowledge is forever imperfect, and however much we differ in our policy proscriptions, we all reconize that everyone has the best interests of the nation and its citizens at heart.

But wait, this is Dean:

"the most divisive president probably in our history."

Divisiveness is bad, you fucking divisivist!

"He's always talking about those people. It's always somebody else's fault. It's the gays' fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It's the liberals' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's Hollywood people,"

Ending divisiveness by accusing others of bigotry, zenophobia, partisanship, blinkered ideoloical fixation, hatred of the Lindsey Lohan, and, well, divisiveness, is probably not the most well thought out scheme. Maybe even risky. What it looks like is what the psychologists call projection.

The Republican agenda "is flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else,"

Is Deano suggesting that the Republicans are for flag-burning and same sex marriage? I mean, big tent and all, but I don't think that's what there about. Oh wait, they're against all that. Which, if Dean is against the evil Republicans who can do no right, does that mean that he supports flag-burning? Or is he suggesting that "flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else" is the sum of the Republican agenda? That God knows what else leaves a lot of room for fiscal, national security, and lots else. Regardless, casting your opponents' agenda in such terms is hardly conducive of unity.

Dean also attacked the president on national defense, health care, education and Social Security.

"He is bankrupting the middle-class," Dean said.

"Attacked." A key ingredient in any effort to end divisiveness. And a little class warfare fearmongering to liven up the mix.

"The president made a big deal about bringing the Iraqi prime minister to address Congress," said Dean, the former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate. "The Iraqi prime minister is an anti-Semite."

Calling the only elected Arab leader in the whole fricking world an anti-semite is perhaps unwise. Especially when his next door neighbor is the real deal. Dean opposes the President. The President hates Ahmedijubabbul, who is an anti-semite and has called for the extinction of Israel. If Dean supports the right of Israel to defend itself, supporting the President might be a useful first step.

The AP article neglected to mention one thing, though. Dean also compared a Republican to Stalin. The irony here is delicious, a leftist calling... oh, never mind:

"Thank God for Bill Nelson, because we'd have another crook in the United States Senate if it weren't for him. He is going to beat the pants off Katherine Harris," Dean said during his 20-minute address. "She doesn't understand that it's…improper to be chairman of a campaign and count the votes at the same time. This is not Russia and she is not Stalin."

There isn't a Godwin's Law for comparisons to Stalin, but there should be. Dean loses the argument on style points alone, no matter Harris' actual character.

It really, truly amazes me. I am astounded that a public figure, the head of one of America's two major political parties, could have the unmitigated gall to call for an end to divisiveness, and then say all of... that. What kind of cognitive disconnect exists in his brain that allows the simultaneous presence of such mutually exclusive ideas? It becomes ever more plausible, at least to this observer, that Dean really is a covert Rovian operative, and possibly a more animated version of the original Gore-class andoid.

[wik] GeekLethal reminds us in the comments of a salient bit of movie-quotery; or rather, indulges in some creative movie-quote-paraphrasery:

"The Gore series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. The Deans look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him.”