It's weird to keep reading blog entries from bands cancelling their shows because they are stranded on the wrong side of volcano. It seems so scifi. If this volcano really does keep erupting, maybe we'll get a sneak peek at the post-oil-crash world where plane travel is impossible and we have to go back to boats for crossing oceans. Or, you know, blimp it.
Fuck yeah volcano.
Tags: doomed, firstperson, grim meathook future, space
Current Music: Veruca Salt -- Volcano Girls ♬
44 Responses:
You'd think a band would be able to pay for a train to take them out of the affected region, and then fly around the world in the opposite direction.
That's why it's round, you know.
because, generally speaking, turing bands operate on such high margins and have little trouble throwing cash around, plus they travel light with nothing but a few carry-ons and, finally, their schedules are amazingly flexible since they only have to play a couple of gigs per year to stay flush. Plus there's no substitute work for them closer to home.
and besides, everyone would love to visit land of the free*, the United States of America!
* some (i.e. a shit-load of) restrictions may apply. Guess who lost the 2016 Olympic Games because of their welcoming nature?
Well, yeah - and, turing bands should also be able to use an infinite amount of tape to simulate any logical operation.
Nobody records on tape any more.
Well-played.
indede.
I would love to see a band comprised solely of Turing machines.
What, you haven't heard of Nickelback?
As tired as I am of people hatin' on Chad and co, I must still applaud. Well played.
There was a Turing Machine composed solely of band members. Will that do?
How do you know you haven't seen one already?
Well, you can have a band made of computer parts controlled entirely by computers. Here, have Bohemian Rhapsody ruined for you via a brilliant setup marred by the arranger's complete deafness to timings. Which is quite annoying when they avoid the usual tone-deafness of fan youtube videos.
(Previously, probably on jwz, and much better except for cheating with hard drive speakers, which is clearly the easy path.)
Does this kind of thing have a name? If not, I offer "micropunk" as a suggestion.
Not quite as exciting, but arguably more amusing, trying to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull
And here I am, living in a city built on top of 50 volcanoes, and not one is exploding. Stupid boring city with it's stupid boring stupid dormant volcanoes.
Dormant volcanoes can get unboring very, very quickly.
Assuming he's talking about Auckland, New Zealand (being the only city I know that's built on top of 50-odd volcanoes), a geologist friend of mine said an eruption's about as likely to happen on bare ground than from one of the dormant volcanoes. The places where volcanic eruptions have already occurred act a bit like plugs to prevent any more matter from coming up on that spot once they've had a bit of a chance to settle down.
Of course, building pretty much anywhere in the country is, like a lot of California, fucking stupid from a geological perspective.
There's actually plenty of places in New Zealand that are geologically stable and present no danger of imminent death by volcano or earthquake.
Although, thinking about it, they are mostly all the uninhabited bits, which does seem a little like failure of common sense now that you mention it.
These are some upclose pictures that really show the electrical activity in the ash:
http://www.swisseduc.ch/stromboli/perm/iceland/eyafallajokull_20100416-en.html?id=3
Why are there no good pictures of the electrical activity larger than 900x600? A standard monitor is four times that big.
Hate to burst your balloon (ha ha get it?), but as I understand it, the problem with the cloud of ash is not just navigation, but the fact that the silicate ash can get sucked into the plane's engines and melt, causing flame-outs and engine failure. I am regrettably behind on my knowledge of blimp technology (and I am sure some steampunk blimp nerd is gonna chime in here and correct me), but I would think the engines that power a blimp's propeller might have a similar problem.
Maybe we should just all revert to sea travel instead?
I've never seen a blimp with jet engines, though that would be epic.
Bet you anything that's gonna be the next thing I have to build for work.
Seriously though, blimps presumably have some sort of engine that powers the props (um, right? What the fuck do I know, I live in the 21st century, not the 19th). Engine + glass fibers = a bad time, I would guess.
The problem that the jet engines are having is that the silica blows through the engines, hitting the hot surfaces and turning into glass. I assume that a normal internal combustion engine would have an air filter on it well ahead of the hot parts, and this wouldn't be a problem. You can't really stick an air filter in front of a jet. Maybe I'm wrong and props are just as susceptible to the angry volcano gods.
Alas, the air filters on i/c engines don't cope well with volcanic dust. The dust also gets into the fuel (as fuel is burned during flight, air is admitted to the tanks) and fucks with the fuel injection system.
NB: it may be merely surreal to you, but I'm currently stranded in Tokyo. (Flight home rebooked for a week later than originally planned; I'm really hoping it takes off on time.)
I was kind of hoping to read about your Plan B of taking a train across Russia!
Apparently getting the necessary visas takes a month. Also: vegan food, in Russia, not so common. I'm not vegan, but $SPOUSE would starve en route ...
I think you're right
There are also turboprop engines, which have a propeller in front of a mostly-enclosed jet turbine. Lots of 19-seater commuter aircraft are like this. There's nothing stopping a dirigible from using the same type of engine.
I/C aircraft ARE less at risk, but I still wouldn't want to fly though that crap in one.
There was a message read on BBC World this morning suggesting giant solar-powered zeppelins with electric motors for cruising. Zeppelins! It makes me happy.
I assume that a normal internal combustion engine would have an air filter on it well ahead of the hot parts...
That worked so well during Mount St. Helens.
Blimps have a major advantage over heavier-than-air craft in that their engines can be bigger and heavier in relation to their power -- and the large thrust and exhaust speed of a jet engine may even be a disadvantage given the speed and physical size of a blimp.
So while a turbojet engine mounted on a airplane wing needs to suck in a lot of air and thus can't really have a dust filter, a turboprop or a turboshaft engine on a blimp can easily be designed to use only filtered air while the prop itself is exposed to the grit in the skies.
It takes a few days but you can go South to fly West.
Take trains down to Greece, ferry across to Cyprus, then Tel Aviv or Damascas, then fly West.
Yeah. and because would ever think of it, there are a whole lot of last-minute tickets available at the counter.
Friends of mine just had their trip to America cancelled after the airline had been postponing it day after day. It just ain't that easy.
Blimps don't have an advantage over jet-propelled lava-proof hovercraft, though.
Even better would be a lava-propelled, jet-proof hovercraft.
Sure, blimps can be pushed by internal combustion piston engines; that's what they were doing 100 years ago. But I wonder what percentage of large prop engine these days are turboprops; those would have the same problem as turbojets / turbofans.
Hm... a Sterling engine might be just the thing: working parts and fluid are sealed from outside contamination; if a bit of glass gets on the outside of the heat exchanger, it shouldn't be a big deal.
http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/20-sustainable-airships-promising-a-clean-future-of-transportation-and-surveillance/
The one on the top of the page uses a Sterling engine. I didn't see any jet engines on there, but i didn't look too closely.
It also scratches the hell out of the windscreen, making it nigh-impossible to see through. Here's plane that went through one previously. Quite a good read.
This is good too:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4527797541_1ab9cb114d_o.jpg
And from yesterday's APOD:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100419.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/19/women-blame-earthquakes-iran-cleric
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/iceland-bans-stripteases_n_512091.html
The volcano's just a result of all that pent-up frustration, I tell you.
(captcha: hormonal meeting. good grief.)
Is there a Greek or Norse god in that picture? 'Cause, there ought to be.
Jon Favreau? I love your movies! Well, I've only seen Iron Man and Zathura, but they were pretty good. So, what are you doing on Livejournal? And what's Vince like in person? Why does he always look tired?
/Joke