Thursday, January 10, 2019

No Do Overs!

23 comments:

Jen said...

This weighs me down to the point that I'm not present. How ridiculous is that??

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

It is a rather sad video, but it helps me think and contemplate the meaning of words and images, and how they relate...

Sorry to bring you down. :(

Jen said...

it's an excellent video! very powerful and effective, i'd say.
radiohead is one of those bands that i'd listen to in college when i was depressed, and it would only make me worse. they helped me wallow in my misery. :p

you didn't bring me down. xoxo

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Glad to hear it. It wasn't my intention to "share the funk". :)

nicrap said...

'Creep' is my favorite.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

A pick me up?

Jen said...

That's a great pick me up!! Amanda Palmer can make magic.
Sometimes I wish I was an artist.

nicrap said...

I am ! :p Haha.

Jen said...

And such a humble one at that! :P

nicrap said...

Badmaash!

Jen said...

Bandar!

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

???

Hi nicrap!

Jen said...

He's just being childish. ;)

nicrap said...

Hey fj! Miss you buddy! :) Hope you are well. Working on a new story but stuck for the time being.

How about you? I heard about the shutdown. Is it gonna last long you think?

Red Herring said...

I just went back to work today. We're building some hardware for a JAXA (Japanese) satellite so NASA gave civil servants and contractors on my project authorization to go back to work.

As for the govies, they aren't going to get paid for a while.

Let me know when you get unstuck. I love your short stories!

nicrap said...

Thanks for your interest fj! Actually the story is quite finished, i am just not happy with it. And then, i have to type it and all. Might take a while, especially as my family and i are going on a short vacation starting 22nd. I will let you know when i am done.

I am glad you are back to work. I looked up the NASA site ... so which of the two instruments mentioned there you are building? Or is it both?

Red Herring said...

Both. We're doing the cryogenics and related detector and electronics for Resolve and X-Ray Mirror Assemblies for both telescopes. The cryo work is interesting, we keep the detectors at a few millikelvin above Absolute Zero (colder than the surrounding vacuum of Space) making them very sensitive. The mirrors consist of thousands of foils that deflect highly energetic X-rays about 1 degree and focus them on the detectors. We also supply a few miscellaneous parts, like the windows for the 3-stage cryo-dewar, a few of which we're sending to Canada next week for characterization in a particle accelerator. The Japanese are supplying the dewars proper and satellite platform/rocket. This is the fourth attempt at this mission, three previously having failed for different reasons in each case.

I look forward to your story though! Have fun on your vacay!

Red Herring said...

Two days ago we were considered non-essential. Yesterday we became essential.

He who controls the language, controls the world!

nicrap said...

First i thought "cryo-dewar' was some kind of wall, from the Hindi word for wall, i.e. "diwar". But Google tells me it's some kind of flask and is named after James Dewar.

He who controls the language, controls the world!

Indeed! Only it beats me who anyone should want to do that! ;)

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Actually, a dewar is a kind of refrigerator, ours being a refrigerator within a refrigerator within a refrigerator (or a flask within a flask within a flask). Each "refrigerator" (dewar) is at a different temperature, getting progressively colder, with our detector in the coldest one (powered by a cable made of high temperature superconducting (HTS) material (to keep the interior refrigerator cool and the conductive heating from the current to the detector power supply to a minimum). So the outer temperature would be around 233K, and it would reduce to 80K, then 17K, then 10K (at the shell wall and to a few millikelvin at the detector surface proper).

Thersites said...

There's a paper on line that outlines one of the instruments here.

Thersites said...

So, in many ways, a dewar is a flask that contains several walls... ;)

nicrap said...

lol. But the fact remains that it's named after James Dewar. ;) The article went right over my head. I only recognized the name Chandra, a.k.a. Chandrashekhar, an Indo-American astrophysicist.