Making Golf Less Affordable

Are you a golf course owner looking to bring more business to your struggling golf course? Do you not care much for this whole "golf should be environmentally friendly" thing, and do you think that instead of making a round more affordable, what you need is a wealthier, more exclusive clientele? Well, then I have some great news for you! The USGA just published a guide to making golf way more expensive, so that you too can appeal to the true elites of society. Success is virtually guaranteed! Who needs the common golfer, anyway? Certainly, not you, wise golf course owner. Because everyone knows that once you start inviting the masses in, you might become popular, and you don't want that, do you? Your golf course would be filled with paying customers, and that's just obscene right there.

On a non-sarcastic note: PLEASE WHY IS GOLF SO EXPENSIVE. And yes, I count anything more than $50 or $60 as expensive. I like golf but I can't pay that much money more than a couple times a year. Same goes for memberships. Right now I drive 25 minutes to play golf, because it was the only place within 20 miles that was even sort of affordable. I can't spend $3000 for a membership, I could barely afford what I did pay. I guess that's what I get for living in one of the wealthiest counties in the country.

So, What's The News From Pluto?

It's been a while since I've mentioned Pluto. New Horizons has been slowly but surely sending back data and some absolutely spectacular images, revealing a world way more complicated than anyone could have predicted.

First off, there's the pictures. The most recent ones show a 50 mile wide strip of Pluto's surface extending on for hundreds of miles. The resolution is about 300 feet. Somehow, geology has crafted great mountains of ice thousands of feet high, as well as rugged badlands extending for miles.

Credit: NASA/JHUA/SwRI

Credit: NASA/JHUA/SwRI

This image is a particular favorite of mine. It's a picture from the other side of Pluto, and I don't know. There's just something about it that appeals to me. The way the haze fades away, the contrast between the mountains and the plain, it's a great image. I have it as my wallpaper on my work computer.

Credit: NASA/JHUA/SwRI

Oh, in case you were curious, if you were standing on the surface of Pluto and looked up, you'd see a blue sky, courtesy of reactions between methane, nitrogen, and sunlight.

Credit: NASA/JHUA/SwRI

In the picture below, the mountains imaged have a very odd texture, almost like tree bark. There was a guess hazarded as to their origin, but basically, we have no idea how they formed. Looks cool, though.

Credit: NASA/JHUA/SwRI

Oh, here's some actual science now. Scientists believe that based on the lack of cratering and the replenishing of nitrogen in the atmosphere, Pluto was almost certainly recently geologically active. It may even still be active today, courtesy of liquid water laced with ammonia. New Horizons even has images of potential cryovolcanoes.

I think that's all for now. Hopefully my next Pluto update won't take so long.

Why Aren't We Researching Gun Violence?

It hardly seems these days that we can go more than a week without hearing about a mass shooting somewhere in America. I know I'm wading into a controversial topic here, but I'm going to attempt to stay as neutral as possible. There are issues at play in that debate far beyond the skills of one lazy 23 year old. However, the pursuit of knowledge is something I feel very strongly about, so imagine my surprise to learn that the CDC is not allowed to conduct research on gun violence. As a medical journalist who has come to be very familiar with the phrase "more research is needed", this boggled my mind. Research isn't allowed? This seemed like a blatant attack on the right to free speech, not to mention public safety. We research everything, but not guns?

Today, I learned the specifics behind this rule. Turns out this lack of research goes back to 1993 with something called the Dickey Amendment. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that year that linked gun ownership to increased risk of homicide in the home. This study was funded by the National Center for Injury Prevention, part of the CDC. As a result, Jay Dickey, a congressman from Arkansas, drafted the amendment, stating that CDC funds could not "be used to advocate or promote gun control." This amendment was expanded in 2009 to include all agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Now, before you go judging Jay Dickey too harshly, in a recent interview, Dickey expressed regret over the amendment, stating that it was never intended to stop gun violence research entirely, and he recommended that Congress reinstate funding. I don't know about you, but if even the guy who wrote the rule thinks we should change the rule, maybe it's time we relax it. Research is a good thing, though as we all know, science has a liberal bent.

Gunpowder Golf Course Review: Part 2

Yes, it's the exciting conclusion to my review of my new home course. It's the back nine today, which in my opinion is the better of the two. Since I've already given my introduction, we'll just get right to business.

The tenth hole is a shortish par 4, with a semi-blind tee shot. The hole is completely straight, and while there is a fairway bunker, I don't have to worry about it. I imagine some people do though. The green is pretty straightforward, though it is slightly elevated above the surrounding fairway. It's one of the few opportunities I get to use my driver, which is very unappreciated on this golf course.

The eleventh hole is a short par 4, doglegging sharply to the left. I suppose that if the tee is positioned correctly and you can hit a big high draw, this green might be drivable. I can do neither of those things, so it's a layup with an iron for me. The second shot plays up the hill to a green with a significant false front. I would highly recommend not going above the hole, especially when the green has dried out and the hole is on the front half of the green. Speaking from experience, it is extremely easy to putt right off the green.

The twelfth hole is a short par 3, playing across a small valley. This is one of those short little par 3's where you really, really want to hit the green, because there really aren't any good places to miss. Right isn't the worst, but short and left obviously leave you a very difficult uphill pitch, and if you miss long, it can very easily bounce off into the trees. Either an easy par or you may have to work for bogey, short of a great recovery shot.

The thirteenth hole is a very drivable par 4, playing slightly uphill. There's a bunker right and slightly short of the green, and a bunker left of the green. Now, I say the green is drivable, but that is mostly theoretical. Because of false fronts, the green plays much smaller than it looks. Chip shots not played towards the middle of the green can easily roll back off. It's still a pretty easy hole, but the difficult green does offer it some defense.

The fourteenth hole is yet another drivable short par 4, even shorter than the last hole. It's actually a really awkward distance for me, it's too short for a 3 wood, but too long for me to reach with an iron. Because of the bunker front-left, it's best to go for the right side of the fairway, but there's a bunker and a scrubby area with some trees and whatnot on the right. The green does have a bit of a false front, but it's not too bad. Otherwise, it's a pretty straightforward green.

The fifteenth hole is the only par 5 on the back 9. Yes, this course is a par 70. Unlike the third hole, which is actually more of a mid-length par 4, this hole is actually par 5 length. Still short, no more than 500 yards, but a legitimate par 5. It doglegs slightly to the right, along thick woods and some out-of-bounds. A slight fade will serve very well, as the fairway also slopes slightly to the right. Assuming the tee shot has been hit well, the second shot is a mid to short iron to a completely open green. It is a pretty tricky green though, with quite a few slopes to make putting and chipping interesting.

The sixteenth hole is a shortish par 4, and if you were to assign this course a "signature" hole, this would be it. The tee shot goes across a valley to an elevated fairway. The ideal tee shot goes about 200 yards to the flattest part of the fairway. From there, it's a wedge over a stream in another valley to the two-tiered green. You definitely don't want to be short on the second. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the hole, but it's definitely pretty unique.

The seventeenth hole is a short par 3. The only real issue on this hole unless you leave the tee shot really short or go really long (which, considering how far my wedges go sometimes, is a bigger issue than it should be) is the big giant slope at the back of green. Technically, there is a tier in the back, and I have seen the hole back there once. It was literally impossible to make a putt longer than a couple of feet. So, the hole is usually in the front half, and the slope presents...well, the sort of problems and opportunities any sort of big slope offers. I do like that picture up there. Definitely the best one I took of the course.

The last hole, fittingly, is a shortish par 4, playing slightly uphill to an elevated green. I don't know what it is, but I have a lot of trouble with this hole. Something about it just doesn't fit my eye. The drive does have to be fairly precise, as there are overhanging trees left of the tee, and a tee shot too far right gets blocked out by more trees. The second shot has to go over a reasonably intimidating bunker short of the green. Because of that, I like to keep my tee shot a bit back so I can go at the green with a mostly full swing. The hole really isn't that tough, the green is pretty straightforward, you just have to fly the second shot over the green.

So, that's Gunpowder Golf Course. It isn't fancy, but it's golf, and it's affordable. I honestly do enjoy playing there, because it really challenges my game. It puts a premium on accuracy and on short game, two things that I am not good and completely horrible at, respectively. And let me tell you, after several months, I have made...well, some progress. I've cut out the big hooks I'd been struggling. My chipping might be a little better, it comes and goes.

I'm not going to give out a numerical rating here. Let's be honest, if I were to be objective here, it wouldn't get a very good score. It's a pretty basic, bare-bone golf course. But that's why I like it. It's a good place for a simple, unassuming golfer to call home.

Gunpowder Golf Course Review: Part 1

This has been a long time coming. Ever since April, Gunpowder Golf Course, located in Laurel, Maryland, has been my home course. It's a bit of a drive from my apartment, but every other golf course in the area is either private or way too expensive. It's not a very fancy place, but that's fine with me. You don't have to wear a collared shirt, and that's a big plus. Anyway, let's get to the course. Since I've played the course quite a lot over the past several months, I'll split the review into 2 parts. Today, we'll talk about the front line.

The first hole is a short par 4 that doglegs to the right. If you can hit a high fade I think the green is reachable from the tee, but I've never tried it. I can't hit a driver high enough. So I just hit a long iron and go at the green with a full lob wedge. There's not a lot of trouble, but I would not recommend going over the green. If you do, you're in a bunch of trees and whatnot. It's not pretty. I'd tell you how long the hole is, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure. There's a scorecard, but the yardages on there are rather...generous. According to the scorecard, the course is over 6,000 yards, but I can tell you that the course is not that long. Anyway, the first green is pretty simple, if often quicker than the other greens on the course.

The second hole is a slightly longer par 4 that doglegs to the left. Unless you can hit a big draw off the tee, you can only hit the tee shot about 200 yards. Go further than that, and you go into the trees. However, don't hook the tee shot too much, because there are trees on the left that will block you out, and yes, they do come into play if you're on the left side of the fairway. There is a bunker back right of the green, but it really isn't a factor. I think I've only gone in it once. The green plays smaller than it looks, since balls will roll off some of the edges.

The third hole is a very short par 5. When I say very short, I mean very short. At its longest, I can play this as a 3 wood, short iron. If the tee is up, I have to use a 4 iron, because the hole is split around 120 yards from the green by a stream. There's out-of-bounds right, and if you go too far or too far left, trees on the left block the green. There's not a lot of room if you hit your drive a long way, another good reason to hold back off the tee. The green slopes pretty severely from right to left, so you really don't want to go right. It's really hard to keep a chip from the right on the green, especially when you're not particularly good at the whole short game thing.

The fourth hole is a par 3, the longest on the course. This hole is a perfect 7 iron for me. Unfortunately, I don't have a 7 iron, so I don't hit this green very often. The green has a false front, and when I use an 8 iron, I usually hit that false front and spin the ball back off the green. The green's pretty straightforward other than that.

The fifth hole is a very short par 4 with a dogleg to the right. Unlike the first hole, which is pretty wide, this hole is quite narrow. You do not want to go right. You do, that golf ball is pretty much gone. Again like the first hole, this green is reachable if you can hit a high fade. I can't, so it's a long iron, 50 yard pitch or so for me.

The sixth hole is a shortish par 4, and for me personally, the first opportunity to use a driver. The hole goes up a hill, then goes back down at the green. There's O.B right, so I tend to hit pretty far left. The seventh hole runs parallel to this hole, and I'm pretty sure I've hit my drive next to the seventh tee more often than I've hit the sixth fairway. The green has two tiers and has no bunkers.

The seventh hole is another shortish par 4 (Yes, they're all pretty short. This isn't a long golf course). Just like 6, the drive is blind. I think this hole has the most blatant exaggeration on the scorecard. According to the scorecard, this hole is 450 yards. Either that is a huge overestimation, or I'm hitting 375-400 yard drives. There's not much to this hole, it's straight, wide open, and there aren't any hazards to speak of. Just don't go over the green, the ball can really get away from you.

The eighth hole is a short par 3, and while it's only about 130 or 140 yards, it's fairly difficult. The green is small, and there's a false front. Of course, there's the water short, and if you go long, you have to hit a chip from a severe downhill lie to a green that slopes away. As is usually the case, it's easiest if you can hit the green from the tee.

The ninth hole is a shortish par that doglegs sharply to the left. Unlike the other big dogleg par 4's, I can actually cut some of the dogleg off. Not with a driver, but with the 3 wood. This one isn't reachable from the tee. A good 3 wood leaves an approach of around 100 yards. There is a bunker by the green, but it doesn't come into play, really.

So, that's the front nine. My record for the front is a 34, 1 under par. I hope to cover the back nine pretty soon.

Terraforming Mars Just Got a Lot Harder

The act of terraforming a planet, even one as comparatively hospitable as Mars, would never be an easy task. But whenever discussing mankind's future on the Red Planet, it seemed to be the inevitable conclusion. We would colonize Mars, and then change it in Earth's image. It would be a daunting task of engineering, and the ethical dilemma of uprooting any potential native life was not going to go away either, but it almost seemed a foregone conclusion that we would eventually terraform Mars.

Mars is probably going to stay red in the future.

According to data from the MAVEN space probe currently orbiting Mars and studying the Martian atmosphere, however, there may be a big problem with future terraforming endeavors. The infant Mars had a thick atmosphere, but as time went on, that atmosphere was lost. It was assumed that most of the carbon dioxide that originally made up the atmosphere had frozen out into the soil, but that is not the case. Once Mars lost its magnetic field, the solar wind, more active when the Sun was young, pummeled the planet, and Mars, already much smaller and with much weaker gravity than Earth, had no way to hold onto its atmosphere. It took maybe around 500 million years, and by around 3.7 billion years ago, the Mars we know today had taken shape. 

Why is this bad for terraforming? Well, if the carbon dioxide had settled into the Martian soil, warming the planet back up again would release it, building up the atmosphere and setting up a greenhouse effect (a good thing in this case), which would heat the planet up even more, releasing even more carbon dioxide and so on. But the carbon dioxide from the original Martian atmosphere is just gone, lost forever to the cosmos. There is still some on the surface, frozen in the ice caps, but likely not enough to work with. This news does not necessarily mean Mars cannot be terraformed, but in order to do so, it's going to take more than just warming the place up.

It's Official: 2019 British Open at Royal Portrush

That's right, one of the worst kept secrets in golf has now been officially confirmed by the R&A. I don't have too much to say about it, considering I said most of what I needed to say more than a year ago. But it's about time. About time they took the Open back to Portrush, and about time they made it it official. I mean, 16 months since it became basically public knowledge, that's kind of ridiculous.

Liquid Water on Mars

It's generally accepted that billions of years ago, Mars was a pretty wet place. But over time, Mars lost its atmosphere and its water, and the oceans that probably existed on the surface dried up. With atmospheric pressure at 1% of Earth's, and with temperatures rarely getting above freezing, liquid water on the surface of Mars today seems like an unlikely prospect. But not impossible. In the past few years, space probes have found features called recurring slope lineae, dark streaks that appear in the Martian summer and fade away during the winter. It was suspected that liquid water was forming these features, but the evidence was not there.

As you may have guessed, today NASA announced that the evidence had been gathered, and they could definitively say that the RSL were in fact formed by liquid water. Now, I don't want to overstate the importance of this discovery. The water is filled with a kind of salt called perchlorate, which lowers the freezing point of the water to well below zero. That's good for liquid water, not good for life, as we know of no organism that could live in such an environment. In addition, we're not talking about some big gushing stream running down a crater, but what basically amounts to damp soil. There's not a lot of water available. However, finding any amount of liquid water is fantastic news. Just because life as we know it could not survive there doesn't mean it's completely inhospitable, and any manned missions to Mars could certainly use it. I think it's absolutely incredible that for so long, we assumed that liquid water could only exist on Earth, but we've found it on Europa, on Enceladus, and now, on Mars. That's 4 different planetary systems that we can find liquid water, spread out across a billion miles of space. At this point, I would be more surprised if life did not exist elsewhere in the Solar System then if it did, because with every discovery of liquid water, the odds of finding life improve.

A Trip to Wigle Whiskey

When you think of whiskey, two places probably spring to mind: Scotland and Kentucky. And if you did think of another place, I can almost guarantee you weren't thinking of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But at the turn of the 18th century, western Pennsylvania was quite the place for whiskey, with over 4,000 stills documented. That's impressive, considering there probably weren't many more people then that living in western Pennsylvania. By 1808 the stills of Allegheny County produced so much whiskey they could have provided half a barrel's worth to every person living in the U.S. That is a lot of whiskey.

Obviously, times have changed. Today, there is only one distillery in all of Pennsylvania. That distillery is Wigle Whiskey, located in downtown Pittsburgh. And yes, it's pronounced "wiggle". It was named after one of the instigators of the Whiskey Rebellion, Phillip Wigle, who was German and would have pronounced his name with a V instead of a W and with a long I. But, we are Americans, and we have a proud tradition of mispronouncing foreign words, so wiggle it is.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a picture of the entire building, but this is not a large operation. The building the distillery is in looks like just another building. The distillery itself only produces 9,000 bottles of various liquors a year, which is not surprising considering the small scale of everything.

The whiskey making process is pretty similar to the beer making process. Our tour guide commented that whiskey is basically distilled beer, and the process starts out basically the same. They had samples of the predistilled, um, fluid (I know it has a name) which was, well, it tasted like...it had taste. I finished it though. I've been on a tour of the Troegs brewery, and while Troegs is by no means a large operation, it completely dwarfed this place. But Wigle prefers to keep things small. Small, and completely organic, using only local ingredients.

This is literally most of their operation.

There's an upside and a downside to this philosophy. Of course, the upside is that their products are of the very highest quality and taste. I won't go into details because the art of liqour tasting is a field I don't want to waddle into. I couldn't tell you about the intricacies of the flavors or whatnot, but I enjoyed everything I tasted their, even the gins, and I do not like gin. The various whiskeys I tried were all excellent, and the bottle of Pennsylvania bourbon I came away with is some of the best whiskey I think I've ever had. It has lots of flavor, but it goes down very smooth, with almost no bite of alcohol afterward. It's the kind of liquor you can let sit and savor, rather than gulping down as quickly as possible before the alcohol overwhelms your mouth.

You can probably guess what the downside is to completely organic whiskey. Just like organic everything, Wigle whiskeys are very expensive. Sure, they're nothing against Scotch, where you can easily spent upwards of $100 for a good single malt, but compared to other bourbons, they're pretty pricey. Before I went to Wigle, the most I'd ever spent on a bottle of bourbon was $45 for a single barrel reserve whiskey. Kentucky Spirit from Wild Turkey if you're curious. The bottle of PA bourbon I bought cost $58. I think it was worth it though. It's actually new, I got a bottle from the third ever batch of the stuff, which is kind of cool.

This was a doubly interesting trip for me, because even though I grew up in Pennsylvania, I've never been to either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia before. Nearby, adjacent, in the area, sure, but never in the city. I still have to go to Philadelphia, but at least I've been to Pittsburgh. It's an interesting place. It was grey, cool, and raining during my trip, so not ideal visiting conditions. I was struck by the abundance of old industrial type buildings, surely relics of Pittsburgh's past. They were everywhere, even downtown. But as we walked the mile or so from our parking garage to the distillery, we actually passed right through an arts and crafts festival. It wasn't on the same scale as say, Artsfest, but there were lots of people out and about. The overall effect was kind of strange. But it was a good kind of strange. I hope those old buildings don't get demolished to make way for classic urban gentrification, they give the city an interesting atmosphere which I enjoyed.

So, even though it was about an unpleasant a day as one could imagine in mid-September, the quality of the whiskey plus the fun of taking a little stroll through a surprisingly interesting city was well worth the long drive. I took a few other pictures as well. One of them is hilarious.

Pluto: The Story so Far

On July 14, the New Horizons space probe flew past the dwarf planet Pluto, more than 50 years after Mariner 2 successfully completed a Venus flyby, the first time a space probe visited another world. It's been a long time coming for Pluto. Voyager 1 was nearly sent to Pluto after its Saturn visit, but instead it performed a close flyby of Titan. Honestly, considering how little Voyager was able to learn about Titan given the presence of its thick, inscrutable atmosphere, Titan may not have been the best choice for Voyager. But finally, Pluto has gotten its first visit, and as is tradition with cutting edge science such as this, Pluto gave us quite a few surprises.

One of the most unusual features is actually a lack of a particular feature, namely craters. There just aren't any there. Charon, Pluto's most significant moon, has a few craters, but not nearly as many as one would expect. These are two cold, small bits of ice and rock 3 billion miles from the sun. There's no gas giant to exert any sort of tidal flexing as is the case with some moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. Based on what we know, Pluto and Charon should both be dead worlds. But they're not. Pluto's surface seems to be less than 100 million years old, very young when it comes to geology.

Typically, worlds made up primarily of ice don't have big elevation changes. Look at Europa, the surface there is so smooth that a cue ball, expanded to Europa's size, would have greater elevation changes. So, it would make sense then for Pluto and Charon to be pretty much flat, right? Well, apparently not, because both have some pretty impressive topography. Charon has a canyon that could be up to 6 miles deep, just one of many canyons in a vast network that span for hundreds of miles. Charon also has a plain near the northern pole that scientists have been informally calling Mordor. I hope that name sticks.

Not to be completely outshone, Pluto has its fair share of interesting geography. Of course, there's the heart, which I believe has officially been termed Tombaugh Regio after Pluto's discoverer. Then there's the mountains. Now at the cold temperatures we're familiar with, water ice is pretty soft and not really capable of getting very high. Pluto is an entirely different sort of cold, cold enough for

strange and unusual ices like methane ice and nitrogen ice. At those temperatures, water ice because solid enough to build mountains. These are real mountains too, with the highest peaks soaring up over 10,000 feet. Sure, we've got higher here, but for a little chunk of basically ice, Pluto didn't do too badly for itself.

It's going to take a long time for New Horizons to send back all the data it collected during its brief visit, more than a year. Right now, we still barely know anything. I'm sure I'll be writing more posts about Pluto in the future as the data slowly trickles in. To wrap things up today, I just want to say that Pluto is not a planet, it just isn't big enough. That said, that doesn't make this achievement any less spectacular.

Battlebots 2015: Episode 3 Review

Well, here we are, the first 4 fights of the round of 16, and the first of the true eliminations. Fights were determined by seed, you know, 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15, and so on. It was a KO kind of night, with only 1 of 4 reaching the 3 minute mark, and honestly, the one that did go 3 minutes was over way before the buzzer ended the fight.

Ice Wave vs. Chomp

A horizontal spinning blade versus a bot whose sole strategy seemed to be spraying flame in the general direction of its opponents. Like seriously, why did Chomp get a wild card pick? It's big, fat, not sturdy in any way, and had clearly inferior weaponry. Ice Wave could have sat still and let Chomp run into it and still won.

Warhead vs. Stinger

At least Warhead makes sense as a wildcard. Unfortunately, it was thoroughly embarrassed once again, this time by Stinger. Stinger proved once again the effectiveness of a simple wedge in the Battlebox, especially if that wedge can lift. Warhead couldn't get past the wedge, and so it was dominated the entire time. I did think it was pretty cool of the Stinger team to keep Warhead in the fight the entire time, since the fight was basically over after 20 seconds. They put on a good show, at the very least.

Ghost Raptor vs. Warrior Clan

Finally, a fight where both robots actually won their first fight. Good of Ghost Raptor to get rid of the blade, that thing was literally useless, and the wedge/lifting arm is probably a better option. I say probably, because Warrior Clan did a whole lot of nothing the entire fight. With its opponent literally breaking down, all Ghost Raptor had to do was not break down first, and it didn't, so it got an extremely boring KO.

Plan X vs. Bronco

Basically, unless you have an extremely destructive robot and get a really good shot off first, if your robot cannot self-right or cannot drive upside down, you have basically no hope against a flipper, especially against Bronco. Plan X is not destructive, it cannot self right and it can't drive upside down. The fight lasted 30 seconds. It only took one flip.

Random Thoughts to close:

Finally some Killsaws in this episode. They do actually work.

How exactly were the seeds determined? Were they random, or was some thought put into them?

I noticed that Bronco is fighting Stinger in the quarterfinals. That might be an interesting fight.

Speaking of future fights, they put Lock-Jaw and Overhaul together again for their round of 16 fight. Hoping for more controversy, I guess.

Battlebots 2015: Episode 2 Review

This episode concluded the qualifying round. How did they manage this when they only show 4 fights a show and there were 8 fights to do? Simple, they only showed highlights from the other 4, which is disappointing. I'm not sure why they didn't want to do an extra show to, you know, show all the fights. But they didn't. So, let's review the fights they did show.


Overhaul vs. Lock-Jaw

In a close match, totally-not-Disector beat Overhaul, another clamping robot. Overhaul got off to a really good start, but I think the experience behind Lock-Jaw was just too much. Also, there was controversy of Lock-Jaw dishing out a late hit, but I guess it ultimately didn't matter.

Witch Doctor vs. Bronco

It was yet another multi-bot where the smaller robot had a flamethrower against Bronco, a bot from the same people who did Toro...and T-minus...and Matador. With Bronco, they took the bold step of...no they didn't. It was basically the same as its predecessors. This fight didn't last very long, as Witch Doctor got stuck after it got flipped into a gap on the edge of the stage. Bit of a design flaw of the stage if you ask me.

Tombstone vs. Counter Revolution

Two robots I'm completely unfamiliar this time around, both with big blades. Tombstone with a horizontal bar and Counter Revolution with two vertical saws. One of the robots got obliterated. It was the one that didn't look stupid. The weapon on Tombstone is something brutal, it's going to take some really fancy driving to beat that robot.

Complete Control vs. Ghost Raptor

I remember Complete Control back from the old days. It was a Middleweight back then, and my most vivid memory was it getting destroyed by Hazard. I mean, most robots in that division were, but I remember that fight was especially fun to watch. Well, Complete Control is a Heavyweight now, and to start off this fight, it got a net stuck in the blade of Ghost Rider. This was the most exciting point of the entire match. After a restart, Complete Control performed the equivalent of breaking its own leg on the floor, and Ghost Raptor's blade snapped in half after hitting its opponent once. Ghost Raptor won the fight, mostly because it was able to move.

Random Thoughts to close:

Seriously, what's up with flamethrowers? I guess the rules have been changed, and I know the House Robots in Robot Wars had them, but they don't feel right for Battlebots.

That net was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I mean, in what sort of reasonable universe would that be allowed.

I saw the guy who did Minion in the highlight reel for the 4 qualifying fights they didn't show.

It doesn't feel right to have a Heavyweight division Battlebots tournament without Biohazard or Vlad the Impaler. I guess those guys have moved on, because they weren't there in any capacity.

The wild card thing was weird. Why didn't they just bring in 32 bots instead of 24?

Next week we get to the real competition, I'm looking forward to it.

Battlebots 2015: Episode 1 Review

Finally got around to watching the opening episode of this new Battlebots, and you know what? It wasn't too much different from the old Battlebots. I recognized at least half of the 8 teams present, and two of the robots were old veterans. I mean, it wouldn't be Battlebots without Nightmare, would it? Anyway, the fights were good, I wish there had a couple more of them, 4 was not quite enough.

Icewave vs. Razorback

The robot with the big horizontal spinning bar beat a robot that really didn't have any way to counter a big horizontal spinning bar. Razorback got KO'd pretty fast, and that wasn't much of a surprise.

Wrecks vs. Plan X

Plan X controlled the fight for almost the entire match, until it apparently got stuck on something and Wrecks shuffled its way over (and I do mean shuffled) and destroyed half of the other robot. Went to a decision, with the victory ultimately going to Plan X. I agree with that decision, if only for the reason that I really don't want to spend any more time looking at Wrecks. I mean, I've seen some pretty stupid designs in all the years I've been watching Battlebots, and a robot that relies on momentum from its saw to shuffle awkwardly across the room is a pretty stupid design.

Warhead vs. Bite Force

This one went the whole 3 minutes, but it was no contest. Warhead, the old veteran robot from the old Battlebots, got shoved about the entire match, and did virtually nothing to its opponent. An easy victory for Bite Force

Warrior Clan vs. Nightmare

The robot might be different, but we all remember what happened the last time when the Whyachi team went against Nightmare. It didn't go much better for Nightmare this time around either. At least it didn't lose any wheels.

Some random thoughts to close out here:

Where are the stage hazards? Specifically, where were the Killsaws? I know they have them, but I never once saw them. Where's the more than a little crazy guy to control the hazards? I mean, there hardly seems like a point if they don't get used.

I guess this is just heavyweights for this tournament? Maybe? There's only 24 robots here, which is a much smaller scale than the old Battlebots, which had 4 divisions and more than a 100 robots in total. Of course, we never got to see every fight, and maybe ABC is just testing the waters to see if Battlebots still has an audience. Hopefully if we get another season we'll see a more diverse field.

I miss the old stage announcer. That guy was awesome.

All in all, I'd say that Battlebots still has the charm that I remember, and I'm looking forward to seeing more robot fights. Hopefully I can review the next episode in a slightly more timely fashion.

Philae is Back!

7 months ago, the Philae space probe landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after being dropped by Rosetta, still orbiting the comet. The landing was less than textbook, as the harpoons intended to anchor the probe to the comet failed to fire. The probe bounced twice and ended up in the shadow of a cliff. This was not the ideal place for Philae, seeing as the probe is solar powered; after a couple of days Philae's batteries were drained and the probe fell silent.

However, as you might have guessed, this is not the end of the story. While the probe was in a shaded area, the people in charge of the mission believed that the lander may eventually come back to life as the comet slowly changed its orientation, bringing Philae out of the shadow. This was not a definite, there was no guarantee Philae would wake back up, 7 months in the cold vacuum of space is going to be tough on anything.

But since we're here, you can probably guess what happened next. On June 13th, Philae sent its first message back to Earth, along with some historical data, indicating that the probe had been reactivated well before sending a message out. This is great news, now Philae can send back some science, and we'll have gotten more out of it then "hey we landed on a comet."

A Bit of Godzilla News

I guess Japan has gotten sick and tired of throwing their entire military at trying to stop Godzilla, so today, they're going for a new strategy: making Godzilla a citizen of Japan. Not only, but they've given him a job and made him the ambassador of tourism for the city of Shinjuku. Not the most obvious choice of city, but apparently Godzilla has visited a few times. It's an interesting move for Godzilla, moving onto a whole new career in his 60's, only a few years from retirement, and considering he's got a movie career in the U.S now, and he's making a return to Japan cinema next year after more than a decade. I guess ambassador of tourism isn't a very time consuming job.

Lasers in Space

Ever since man has first dreamed of flying through space, man has dreamed of attaching weapons to those spaceships. The latest addition to man's dream of weaponizing space may actually come to fruition. There are now plans to mount a powerful laser on the International Space Station.

It actually makes sense once you understand the context. There's about 3,000 tons of various kinds of debris floating around in Earth's orbit, and the tiniest speck can pack an enormous punch. The ISS constantly has to manuever around bits and pieces of space junk, and it is built to withstand impacts from really small objects. But think about it. It would make everyone's lives much easier if there was something up in orbit getting rid of potentially hazardous junk. After all, we've come to depend on satellites, and some stray debris could wreak a lot of havoc.

Unfortunately, the idea of attaching a laser to a space station is a bit politically sensitive. I imagine there will be some controversy. But the fact is that we depend on satellites up there in orbit, and they are all under constant threat. A way to clear out space debris would not only protect the people up in orbit, it would benefit all of us. As much as we might want to avoid it, space weaponization is probably inevitable, and as long as things are handled transparently, it should work out just fine.

Propulsion from Nothing is Still...Probably Nothing

Several months ago, I posted on this blog. Several months before that, I wrote about how there was supposedly some new means of propulsion that, well, wasn't actually propulsion. It seemed incredibly dubious then, so imagine my surprise when this story reared its ugly head once again in the past week or so. 

If you go through that, you might notice mention of the word "superluminary", or fancy science talk for faster than light. Yes, it wasn't enough for this theorized propulsion system to be highly implausible, we had to go a step further and make this thing a warp drive. Yes, that's basically what they're claiming, and of course, news sites ran with it. You can't come with 30 miles of mentioning warp drive and not expect people to go crazy.

There have certainly been voices of reason since the news broke. And that's good. While this new drive has apparently been subjected to slightly more rigorous experimentation, there are two very important facts that must be brought to the front. One, this news was basically self-published. There was no peer-review, nothing to stop them from basically fabricating their results. Two, science depends on repeatability. Once is a coincidence. Until at least one other independent organization can duplicate the results, we have to assume that this extraordinary claim is incorrect in some way. Again, don't get me wrong, I'd love it if this ended up all working out. I just don't think it will.

Battlebots is Returning

Yes, you read that correctly. Battlebots is apparently making a comeback this summer. I remember watching Battlebots when I was young, it was great. Who doesn't like robots fighting each other in an arena filled with saws and sledgehammers? Sounds like a great formula to me. Really hope it works out, I'd love to have Battlebots back.

To celebrate, here's a video of Ziggo destroying some poor robot that decided a bit of wood was a good weapon against a bunch of rapidly spinning metal.

Or if you prefer non-wanton destruction...

Exoplanet with Rings Discovered

What? It most certainly hasn't been two months since the last post, what are you talking about?

And you thought these rings were impressive.

Anyway,  scientists found an exoplanet orbiting the star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 (what a catchy name) a few years back. Nothing unusual about that, but after a closer look, things got a bit baffling. Ordinarily, when a planet transits in front of a star, the star dims once, and then brightens again. Old J1407, as I am henceforth calling, was not dimming like that. It would dim and brighten many times in succession. They figured out it was a ring system orbiting the planet, J1407b, back in 2012, but at the time, they thought there were only 4 rings.

As it turned out, they slightly underestimated. Apparently this planet has 37 rings, with a radius of 0.6 AU. That means Earth's entire orbit would fit with this ring system. They have an estimated mass of 100 times the mass of the moon, and a gap 0.4 AU out is big enough that a Mars or even Earth-sized object could be orbiting inside. It should be noted that this planet is very young, less than 20 million years, and these rings are not going to last long. Astronomically long, that is. Eventually, those rings will disappear as moons appear, but with that much mass contained in the rings, there could be some pretty big moons. The planet's a bit too far out for any Earth-sized moon to be potentially habitable, which is too bad, but the idea of seeing a ring system that ridiculously oversized would probably make J1407b quite the tourist destination. Now, all we need is interstellar travel...