Author Archives: Chompsky

Behold: the Koenigsegg Gemera – a new class of supercar/luxury sedan hybrid the company is calling the ‘Mega-GT’.

Giant wing doors open onto a four-seat interior (Koenigsegg’s first) equipped with wireless phone chargers, on-board WiFi, an 11-speaker sound system, ‘infotainment’ displays front and rear and luggage space in the boot. Power comes from a 2.0l, 600bhp, twin turbo, three cylinder engine and three electric motors producing a further 1,100bhp, 0-100km/h in 1.9 seconds and a top speed of 400km/h.

Only 300 will be made at a yet to be announced, probably fairly hefty list price.

uncrate

Behold: Sharpless 308 – the ‘Dolphin nebula’ – a cosmic bubble much larger than it appears to be. To wit:

…it lies some 5,200 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major) and covers slightly more of the sky than a Full Moon. That corresponds to a diameter of 60 light-years at its estimated distance. The massive star that created the bubble, a Wolf-Rayet star, is the bright one near the centre of the nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars have over 20 times the mass of the Sun and are thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova phase of massive star evolution. Fast winds from this Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. The windblown nebula has an age of about 70,000 years. Relatively faint emission captured in the featured expansive image is dominated by the glow of ionised oxygen atoms mapped to a blue hue.

(Image : Chilesope 2, Pleaides Astrophotography Team (Peking U.))

apod

Satellite images illustrating a car-addicted world. The end is nigh. To wit:

Automobiles make up 70% of the emissions from all forms of transportation. There are an estimated 1 billion cars on the planet, with around 80 million new cars sold each year. Despite continually strong sales, experts suggest we have reached ‘Peak Car’ — meaning the average distance traveled per person in cars has peaked, and will continue to fall over time. There are many different factors contributing to this trend, such as a global shift towards urban living, new forms of mobility, new government policies for reducing traffic, and a slowing expansion of road networks.

MORE: Moving Away From ‘Peak Car’ (Over-View)

kottke

Lord Of The Rings fan? Stickler for detail? Today’s your lucky day.

In the first instalment of a 6-part series on his superbly named blog ‘A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry’, military historian Bret Devereaux takes a very close look indeed at the Siege Of Gondor in Peter Jackson’s ‘Return Of The King’. To wit:

The army Sauron sends against Minas Tirith is absolutely vast – an army so vast that it cannot fit its entire force in the available frontage, so the army ends up stacking up in front of the city:

The books are vague on the total size of the orcish host (but we’ll come back to this), but interview material for the movies suggests that Peter Jackson’s CGI team assumed around 200,000 orcs.  This army has to exit Minas Morgul – apparently as a single group – and then follow the road to the crossing at Osgiliath.  Is this operational plan reasonable, from a transit perspective?

In a word: no.  

READ ON: The Siege Of Gondor, Professionals Talk Logistics (ACOUP)

kottke