MARTIAN LASER BATTLES!

Okay, I Exaggerate Slightly

Hmmmm perhaps even a lot. I know what you're thinking, that this is all part of a cunning plan to reference futurologist Gerry Anderson's exploration of Mars. After all, we have only explored a fraction of the entire Martian surface, and who's to say that we won't encounter the terrifying Martian Rock Snake?  Art, a cautionary picture, please.

      There are those who claim that precautions are a bit late, because - well, allow me to illustrate a point.  Art!

     ANYWAY what I wanted to get across today is that the Perseverance rover is not defenceless if either of the two pictures above turn out to have a smidgeon of truth about them.  For Lo! it carries a battery of laser cannon.  Yes, really, and the BBC kindly provided a mocked-up picture of what they look like in action.  Art!

     Okay, Conrad shouldn't have to day this, but THIS IS A MADE-UP PICTURE.  The rover does not have a dismountable camera, this picture was created by digital artists.  Just in case, because inevitably some bafoons will come along and vent swivel-eyed babble about "NASA conspiracy lies" - more of that later.  The official NASA line is that the lasers are there to - hah! - 'enable spectographic and acoustic analysis of rock samples'.  Yeah right.  Conrad thinks that these first days and weeks are being utilised to ensure there are no Martian Rock Snakes in the vicinity; after which the Ingenuity mini-copter will be launched to cover a wider area and ensure no silicoid slithering sinisters are nearby.  Art!

The Ingenuity helicopter gunship.

     It's all present in "Thunderbirds Are Go" you know*.  Okay, motley, time for Maces On Mopeds!

Here's One They Prepped Earlier

If you follow the blog with any regularity then you know Conrad enjoys supporting the efforts of Professor Ann Reardon, who is on a solo crusade to expose and destroy the endless fake "life hacks" seen on Youtube about cooking and baking.  This week on "How To Cook That" she took on some charlatans on 'Buzzfeed', which sounds like an unpleasant oral experience.  People on Youtube were having trouble making Japanese Fluffy Pancakes if following the Buzzfeed channel's methods.  Art!

What the Buzzfeeders claimed to have made

     These actually look uncooked in their middles, meaning that the BF couldn't really manage to cook them properly.  They even had an amateur chef in the kitchen being coached by a supposed expert in making JFP.  Art!

     Feel his pain.  One person on Youtube claimed to have tried 24 times to make these things, which were done in a couple of small, bottomless circular cake moulds.  Ann herself tried, to no avail, despite waiting for 35 minutes to try and flip one of the rings onto the raw side.  She then went back to check the BF video frame-by-frame, and see below -

     They had already baked the bottom, then cut to a different shot to show the successfully flipped cake ring.  Cheating!

     That above is the sad end result of Ann's attempt.  It was still raw in the middle and fell apart when out of the ring.  However - and you knew that was coming -

     She followed the recipe, and added a little powdered egg.  Then she put a scoop on a paper-lined baking tray and baked it in the oven for 10 minutes, before adding another smaller scoop on top.  End result what you see above, genuine Japanese Fluffy Pancakes!  <snaps fingers at Buzzfeed>.  One small triumph for truth!

Point And Laugh

Whilst goggling in disbelief.  You ought to recall that Conrad mentioned a new Youtube channel called "Professor Stick" yesterday, whom has been taking on Youtube videos posted by Flat Earthers, and beating them over the head with logic, facts and science.  Conrad, after sitting through a mind-bogglingly stupid video that the Prof was analysing, decided to help pick on this low-hanging fruit.  Art!

     Sorry, no relevant photograph possible as it was of a small orange blob on a black background and all you could see was Conrad.  FELLA ("Flat Earther Lying Loudly & Annoyingly") stated that these aren't stars, they are merely glowing dots.  Evidence?  Facts?  Supporting evidence?  None.  Merely the bold assertion that these are not stars or planets.  Art!

    
     If I wasn't holding a camera I'd be face-palming.  FELLA claims that his hand-held camera's image, filmed from the very bottom of Planet Earth's atmosphere, disproves an image of Mars as taken from a probe on close approach.  His image, of course, danced all over the place because he didn't bother to use a tripod.  Art!

     That's an image also taken with a Nikon P900, except this user had it firmly based.  There's more.  Art!

"Mars" and "Devon Island"

     This image is supposed to prove that the surface of Mars is in fact merely that of Devon Island with a red filter, being a Canuckistanian island that indeed resembles the Martian surface.  No source is given.  In fact the reverse is true; some wag has put a red filter over a picture of Devon Island and then called it "Mars".

      Finally - you may avoid this if you feel the stupid is catching - there is blatant ignorance of aircraft, missiles and rocketry.  Art!

Sorry, your ignorance or credulity does not stop physics from working.  If you think I am being too harsh, remember that nobody asked or demanded that FELLA had to put this video up.

     This, according to FELLA, is a 'fighter jet', which it patently is not.  It is the Blackbird SR71 reconnaissance jet, capable of Mach 3.3, which ten seconds of Google would have revealed.  Neither is it "the fastest ever vehicle" as FELLA claims, since the X15 beats it handily.  This is quite beside hundreds of rockets and missiles that traverse the terrestrial atmosphere; a Minuteman III warhead has a terminal velocity of Mach 12, for example.  Anything travelling in space can achieve colossal velocities beyond that, because space is EMPTY** and POSSSESSES NO ATMOSPHERE and thus speeds can be ASTRONOMICAL.

Finally -

Conrad noted on the BBC's News webpage that a digital artist has made £50 million by selling - I think - images he has been creating over the past 5,000 days, in a complicated arrangement that ties them to Bitcoins.  Or "Non-Fungible Tokens", whatever they are.  Your Humble Scribe eyes Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies with a great deal of suspicion, considering that they look a lot like gambling.  Come back in a year's time and see what's left of that £50 million, eh?

     Okay, despite Sajan (the artist also known as "PlanetSMudge") vilifying this move over on Twitter, that's not what I wanted to post about.  Art!

Worth £10,000?  Really?

     You see, no sooner had Your Humble Scribe seen that image than, of course - obviously! - he immediately thought of "The Expanse" and those unfortunates who had been infected by the Protomolecule.  Art!

     The question is, which came first?  I think we should be told!

*   Yes, bits of this are tongue-in-cheek.  However, I'm not saying which.

**  I think this is a Hawkwind lyric.