As You Should Surely Know By Now -
Conrad never got over the giddy schoolboy stage of taking a morbid delight in things that explode, the bigger the explosion the better, and all the more so if there were more explosions after the first one. Of course, the realllllly big bangs were ushered in with the Atomic Age at Trinity, New Mexico, when the 'gadget' was detonated and things have never been the same since. Art!
The Gadget with puny humans for scale The 'after' shot
This was a humble 18 kiloton device; imagine 18 long trainloads of HE bundled up in that single sphere and you can see how space-saving nuclear weapons are.
ANYWAY ever since 1945, the entertainment industry has tried to replicate the characteristics of nuclear explosions, with varying degrees of success. Art!
This is from "The Day After" in 1983, which was a relatively low-budget made-for-television film. The nuclear explosions here are actually inverted film of dye being dropped into a tank of water, and you can't complain too much given that they were done on a budget of $20.67.
Abruptly switching track, we now have nuclear physicist Greg Spriggs, who has a Ph D in Nuclear Engineering, and whom works at the Lawrence Livermore laboratory. There, he writes arcane code to model nuclear explosions, so they don't have to be done for real all that often. Art!
Greg has also been involved with the analysis and assaying of many of the 10,000 films that were shot of above-ground nuclear testing between 1945 and 1963 in South Canada.
In short, he knows his nukes.
So, when he was asked by Insider to do an expert's breakdown of various nuclear detonations in cinema, and had it presented on Youtube, guess which ghoul was there in the corner with a bucket of popcorn and his tongue hanging out? Art!
"2012"
Greg gives it the thumbs-up. It had the right 'glow-time' which is what we nuclear experts call the duration of the fireball's ascent, neither too quick or too slow. The reason it's not fast is because ground zero is a long way from Gotham.
That the fireball can be seen, even at such a distance, is quite credible, because explosions of this magnitude can reach a mile high. Greg did criticise how soon the blast wave reached the bridge spectators, which is forgivable as you don't want to have the audience waiting thirty seconds for the other shoe to drop. Call it poetic licence, Greg.
What Greg also pointed out, in a tweak only us nuclear experts know of, is that a white fireball like this one will produce very little fallout. What you have to look out for are the dirty grey or outright black detonations, because those have vapourised thousands of tons of dirt, which will become dangerous fallout in large amounts. Art!
So, what does Greg think? Art!
Not bad, considering that the detonation only takes up a couple of minutes at the end of the film and it needn't have been accorded any great import. But then again, we are dealing with Christopher Nolan, who likes accuracy.
Berefth Of The Meth
NO! This is nothing to do with illegal drugs, especially not Pervitin, the Nazi wonder-drug that turned their soldiers into raging homicidal psychopaths as likely to kill each other as the enemy. And which must have been a gift to stand-up comedians in the Allied nations, be
ANYWAY there I was last night, pondering as to when Methylated Spirits were invented. Art!
Do you know, I couldn't find any trace of a date for it's inception. The purple dye added to warn that it ought not to be drunk was invented by a Mister Perkins in 1856, so it had been around before then.
Let me explain. Ethanol, a.k.a. grain alcohol, makes a good solvent, cleaner and fuel source, and is typically cheap. This last factor appeals VERY STRONGLY to all the alkies out there, because as an industrial agent, it isn't taxed as a spirit drink of similar strength would be. You're probably ahead of me here. Art!
Necking a litre of whisky and with a gun. What could possibly go wrong?
So all sorts of stuff was added to it, most especially methyl alcohol, because this will kill you if you drink it, which is rather a buzzkill. Okay, where does methyl alcohol come from? It's alternate name, 'wood alcohol' might give you a clue. It was created in 1660 by the English scientist Robert Boyle, distilled from boxwood and initially called 'Pyrolitic spirits' and one can see why; one sip and you'd be transported to the spirit world yourself. Art!
Robert Boyle. Another big wig!
So I can do no more than say Methylated Spirits were invented after 1660 and before 1856.
Up In Smoke Makes Kremlin Broke
Ladies and Gentlemen and those undecided, allow me to introduce the mighty Ruffian Predel-e Over-the-Horizon radar system, valued at $200,000,000 dollars thanks to being absolutely stuffed with expensive, complex, expensive, state-of-the-art, expensive computer technology. Art!
This thing is brand new, it only went into service in June 2023 and it's both so novel and secret that there are no photographs of it's interior. Art!
Ooops. It was destroyed by one of these, which come in at $165,000. Art!
Happy Harry HIMARS went hop! hop! hop!
Russian radar now needs lots of workshop!
The final irony is that the HIMARS 'Gimmler' was directed to target by a drone costing $2,000. Art!
For $200,000,000 they could have built Luna-26.
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor is about to surprise a rather lax young lady who had been sitting on a boring stretch of duty, monitoring Downstairs.
‘Oh! Goodness! Doctor Haritanian!’ she gasped in surprise
and embarrassment, switching off the device.
‘Don’t worry, Devi,’ replied the older man, drily. ‘This is Doctor John Smith. Yes, you heard correctly, that Doctor John Smith. He wants to review a set of – well, rather
depressing logs of what happened before you were born. Is anything unusual happening Downstairs?’
The young woman, who seemed to be Indian, swallowed.
‘No, Doctor. Oh! I’m sorry – Davy. No.
Nothing unusual. A lot of the
normal low-level radio communication, strictly line-of-sight. Nobody trying to contact Upstairs, except the
usual from Carslbad Crew, and they moved into radio-shadow half an hour ago.’
‘Very well. Please allow Doctor
Smith – excuse me? Oh, I do apologise.
Please allow the Doctor to utilise all the screens to display data
stored on these disks. Doctor.’
With a bow Davros was gone, leaving the Doctor to ruminate reflectively
on the hiliarious irony inherent in a name.
Rubbing his hands together, he beamed with childish verve at Devi, who
blushed and looked away.
‘Splendid! Let’s get down to
business, shall we? You can call me “The
Doctor”. I’m a visiting genius,
problem-solver and all-round expert in everything. Plus, I can do this - ’ and he trilled “Also
Sprach Zarathustra”’s opening movement in birdsong.
I'd pay money to see a performer manage that in real life.
Move Along, Nothing To See Here
We have, recently, featured South Canadian wildlife demonstrating that it is wild, and why you need to keep at least 35 yards distance from bison, and 100 yards from bears or wolves. One zoo-owning pundit explained that bison are especially unpredictable, in that they do not display any signs of being annoyed or upset or intent on goring you into a human colander, until suddenly you have a ton of meaty muscle dancing on your punctured carcass. Art!
Note timestamp Again, note timestamp
The car sustained no apparent damage, probably because Mister B only had a yard of run up, if that. I'd still get a mechanic to look under the bonnet if I were you, matey. Also, consider that this bloke was merely idling in his car, not walking up to Mr & Mrs B and trying to sit on their back. He didn't even lean on the horn.
Finally -
I shall have to go back through "The Annals Of Urquelomplangia" and see how the Royal Mage's chambers were accoutred, because I had in my mind's eye a medieval vista of stone-flagged floors and equally bare stone walls, when by the late seventeenth-century I bet panelling and wainscoting and vaulting in different woods had become the fashion of the day. O noes, research, how sad, never mind.
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