Bullet Points: 

** (Reuters) (captioned photo) German air taxi developer Lilium Air Mobility said on Thursday it had reached a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour with a technology demonstrator, calling it a key milestone on the way to certifying its electrically powered flying shuttles in 2025.

** (Mail) SVB had NO head of ‘risk assessment’ for nine months before it collapsed… as woke boss for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa was busy organizing a month-long Pride campaign and a ‘Lesbian Visibility Day’. Of course.

** The experts were never wrong. They were lying.  There is a big difference.

** Books – “When our genes could not store all the information necessary for survival, we slowly invented them. But then the time came, perhaps ten thousand years ago, when we needed to know more than could conveniently be contained in brains. So we learned to stockpile enormous quantities of information outside our bodies. We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of that memory is called the library. A book is made from a tree. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, and citizens of distant epochs who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.” -Carl Sagan, Cosmos

** Comet – While naked-eye comets are rare, visible roughly once in two years, C/2023 A3 could be a comet of a decade, according to Peter Veres, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It’s time for a little existential dread.

** Do I personally care? No, but Roku held approximately $487 million of its $1.9 billion in cash at Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed Friday and was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Roku (ROKU) said, adding that most of its deposits with the bank are uninsured.  For those of you who were concerned (Lonestar Parson), Lambert Research LLC did not keep its assets at Silicon Valley Bank.

The return to the White Wolf Mine is not accompanied by depression and woe.

** March 9, 2023, LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA – Record snowpack.

Even though Flagstaff,  AZ received its second heaviest snowfall on record and the White Wolf Mine is about 70 miles from there and received drifts over 4′, it’s not close to the same sort of global warming. This is what happens when you cook on a backyard BBQ. The WWM has a dark green steel roof and we didn’t have the threat of collapse that other places did. The snow slid off.

 

 

 

Hyperion

Saturn’s Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team Explanation: What lies at the bottom of Hyperion’s strange craters? To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft that once orbited Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon and took images of unprecedented detail. A six-image mosaic from the 2005 pass, featured here in scientifically assigned colors, shows a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and an odd, sponge-like surface. At the bottom of most craters lies some type of unknown dark reddish material. This material appears similar to that covering part of another of Saturn’s moons, Iapetus, and might sink into the ice moon as it better absorbs warming sunlight. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, rotates chaotically, and has a density so low that it likely houses a vast system of caverns inside.

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36 COMMENTS

  2. Lilium Air- Like EdB said, “for how long?” Serious Question: On a petrol run aircraft when the fuel is being depleted and the plane gets lighter doesn’t that increase effective range, whereas an EV plane weighs the same as the batteries deplete, effectively shortening potential range? Yes/no?

    If a comet decides to run into us at some point I hope I’m grilling a nice steak while drinking a Guinness Stout…what else can one do but enjoy the view for a few seconds.

    Tahoe- That’s some serious snow blower work. Metal roof here as well, and a 12/12 pitch on the main part…added snowbars to keep from getting buried unexpectedly or ripping the gutters off when it decides to let loose. But tax me to the hilt for less snow, or is that “taxes for more snow” I can’t keep it straight? Same gov’t mentality as DST (which will warrant significantly more coffee this morning).

  3. I am so glad that poor depositors like Ryku are getting all their money back. I sure hope nobody asks the BOD just why the hell did they have hundreds of millions on deposit there without doing any diligence beyond DEI and which party do they donate to kind of diligence. Or if the “big guy” is getting 10% of this deal.

  5. I will never understand how anyone stupid enough to stick huge sums of (uninsured) money in freaking banks of all places, managed to get the money in the first place.

    I mean, yeah – cons, swindles and rackets. But how can people be so dumb?

    -Kle.

    • “The Big Short” and “Margin Call”…I am convinced that the money markets, and all that entails, has become just another criminal sleight-of-hand grifter enterprise. At least the Mafia had standards and consequences for not following the rules. These guys get a free lunch.

      “For the love of money is the root of all of evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.’

    • The “big guys” who have lots of uninsured money will be made whole through their “influence” on elected and regulatory officials.

      As to “how”? Some got the money through innovation and hard work. But many got it the way they’ll be made whole — through nepotism, semi-closed networks, “influence” and judicious giving of gifts and favors (or old-school hookers and blow; though our new “elite” seems to favor prepubescent minors rather than adult prostitutes — enjoy WeiMerica, while it lasts).

  7. Snow. And I thought where I lived in Quebec had snow when there were six foot wals on the side of the road. I would like to see the now blower that clears that road.

    Well SVB’s depositors have been rescued at the cost of? Increased inflation would be my guess since the fed will just print more money to cover the losses.

    Dr. Sagan has a point, writing is something that makes our species the top of the heap…for now. It does sometimes seem as if we, as a species, are doing our best to climb down from the top of the pyramid though.

    Electric aircraft, batteries weigh a lot, so do electric motors. As long as energy density in batteries stays about where it is today these aircraft will continue to be a novelty. Now if somebody developed something like Robert Heinlein’s Shipstones that would be a new game entirely.

  8. “…with strange craters and an odd, sponge-like surface.”
    reminds me of some of the larger rocks you’ll find in Crater Lake National Park, Klamath Falls, Oregon

  10. Your WWM roof is the way to go.
    In Steamboat Springs, CO the imported trust fund snots who took power decreed “interesting” roofs, wood shakes, and banned metal roofs. With this years four wire winter, the check has come due. Several entrepreneurs offer steam cleaning of roofs and are booked solid. Oooh, global warming!

    • Showcasing the differential…decades ago Boulder County banned wood shingle/shake roofing…a fire hazard (and literally, not a good material for arid climates anyway). They look good for two years then start deteriorating. The state insurance commission, made up of bureaucrats and insurance companies, generated a wildfire rating for each state area. From what I can tell it’s to allow increasing homeowners rates to whatever they want, or “see ya”. Didn’t work out so well for those in the Marshall fire, who had a low “residential subdivision” rating.

      Can’t make sense of any of what officials do to “fix” something…but yeah, metal roofs or coated steel shingle panels are perfect for the West.

      • The Marshall fire exposed many problems which haven’t been fixed or changes made. The same two story fire hazards are still being built in the adjacent areas. The same two lane county roads haven’t been improved. The fire department staffing is about the same.

        100 mph winds occur in the area. In 1967 the jet stream touched down in Boulder nearly wiping out the airport.

        At least the prairie dogs are safe!

    • When The Collapse happens and cannibalism is rampant, I hope the trust fund snots are rapidly dispatched and eaten. Except for their brains, left untouched lest the eater be turned into a smug imbecile through contamination.

      What’s next, decreeing that all SS residents get a BLM tattoo to demonstrate social consciousness, plus take up Morris Dancing to appear charmingly rustic for the entertainment of our “betters”?

      (I know, eating parts other than the brains can still lead to prion diseases, but the phrasing makes for better wordplay.)

  13. Nice luggage, but out of my price range! Apparently some of the areas around Tahoe are reporting FIFTY feet of snowpack! But the roads are closed, so no skiers… I can’t help but wonder if Hyperion is actually an ice moon that is melting.

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