Google Tech Talk December 15, 2009 ABSTRACT Presented by Dr. John Hunter, President of Quicklaunch, Inc. Quicklaunch is dedicated to launching rocket propellant and other consumables into orbit using a hydrogen gas gun. Quicklaunchers are related to the SHARP launcher, originally at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. More than 90% of the mass required for manned Mars and Lunar exploration is propellant. The Quicklaunch breakthrough will result in costs less than 0/lb to propellant depots in Low Earth Orbit. These low costs will enable manned space exploration of the solar system in our lifetime. Johns talk will include the history of gun launch to space, from the popularizers to the practitioners. A brief physics overview will be given on hydrogen gas guns as well as electric guns. An animation will portray a Quicklauncher delivering propellant to a depot in Low Earth Orbit. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

An idea of how much I enjoyed playing The Creative Assembly’s, by way of Sega, Napoleon: Total War pretty much all weekend long: I just ordered all four parts of Max Gallo’s biography of Napoleon from Amazon France. I don’t even speak French! (Well, a very little bit, but certainly not enough to read a four-volume biography written by someone who’s a member of L’Academie française.) That’s a pretty big endorsement: the game re-kindled my interest in Napoleon so much that I bought books that I can’t even read. Wild.

It’s such a computer game. The game is the sequel to last year’s Empire: Total War, which was one of the best PC games released last year, but rather than take an on entire era, from every country’s perspective, Napoleon focuses on the many awesome campaigns of the greatest man to ever walk the planet. There’s a reason why Bender Bending Rodriguez styles himself after Le Petit Corporal.

I’m terrible at the game. Like, my idea of military strategy can best be described as Russian: throw bodies at my enemies until I’ve exhausted their supplies. Thankfully, Napoleonic France had the biggest population of all the European countries (yes, even slightly bigger than Russia’s), so it’s pretty easy to recruit infantry to make up for my strategic failures. Outside of the battle scenes, which look terrific on my recently built PC, I’m over here managing my country’s resources. We’re nearing bankruptcy! The workers in Milan have gone on strike! Our cannons in Turin have been attacked by a bunch of Juventus fans!

If nothing else, I’d make a very good bureaucrat. It’s so fun to steer the ship of state, balancing income with expenditures, as my troops sweep across the Continent. Get out of my way, Austria! It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I bow before some corrupt Viennese prince!

The game is fun, in other words.

Deviant Art

Intel gets five accented stuntmen together to shoot themselves out of cannons in order to achieve the world’s biggest Intel chime. It’s on YouTube, of course.

Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

By Evan Ackerman

This is what’s called a sundial cannon, or a noon cannon. Assuming the weather cooperates, at noon exactly the lens on the sundial focuses sunlight onto a pan filled with gunpowder, setting off the cannon to mark the time. Generally, the cannons weren’t loaded with shot, but with all of the novelty alarm clocks out there, it seems like one that automatically shoots you could be really, really effective, in a potentially dangerous sort of way. And hey, it’s even solar powered.

VIA [ Neatorama ]

Who hasn’t been at a sporting event and wished for one of those T-shirt cannons? Nike is “selling” the Nike T-shirt Gun seen in the above video for just $1500. I put “selling” in quotes because it doesn’t seem legit. It’s one of those “internet jokes” that you may have read about in USA Today.

According to the product description:

Better than you’ll find in any stadium or arena, the Nike T-shirt Gun is the best in fan gear for your favorite sporting event.

• The Nike T-shirt gun delivers only Premium Nike T-shirts.
• Eliminates poor fitting, uncomfortable, lame-designed T-shirts on all your friends.
• Each limited edition T-shirt gun is numbered and engraved with the signature of a Nike athlete.
• Quality Craftsmanship guarantees your T-shirt gun will last game after game.

A T-shirt gun with unlimited premium Nike T-shirts that can shoot those shirts onto other people? If only it wasn’t out of stock! I suspect it’ll be out of stock indefinitely unless Nike has somehow managed to make an affordable T-shirt cannon that doesn’t rely on a giant backpack full of compressed air. That, and the magic T-shirt trick it can do.

Nike T-shirt Gun [Nike.com via Newlaunches]