aetherrithmetic:

perpetumobsessive:

aetherrithmetic:

perpetumobsessive:

aetherrithmetic:

perpetumobsessive:

aetherrithmetic:

oxfordcommaforever:

engineeringisawesome:

Transparent Aluminum

Transparent aluminum starts out as a pile of white aluminum oxynitride powder. That powder gets packed into a rubber mold in the rough shape of the desired part, and subjected to a procedure called isostatic pressing, in which the mold is compressed in a tank of hydraulic fluid to 15,000 psi, which mashes the AlON into a grainy “green body.” The grainy structure is then fused together by heating at 2000 °C for several days. The surface of the resulting part is cloudy, and has to be mechanically polished to make it optically clear.

All that work pays off. AlON can do amazing things. Here, for instance, a 1.6″ thick AlON plate successfully resists a huge, powerful .50 AP bullet that smashes easily through more than twice that thickness of conventional laminated glass armor, with plenty of energy left over to extremely kill a plastic mannequin head.

It’s expensive, of course, and so generally reserved for high-performance applications, especially in military fields. AlON is manufactured by Massachusetts-based Surmet Corporation for use in armored windows, lenses for battlefield optics, and “seeker domes,” which are the clear round windows covering the sensor heads on the business ends of many missiles. If you want to read further, Tom Scheve has prepared a good bibliography over at HowStuffWorks.

MAKE

They star wars a reality. Next stop, hyperdrive.

Star WHAT?  =_=

ANOTHER SUCCESS FOR THE TREKKIES!

Btw guys, you’re welcome for the cellphones.

HOW CAN ANYONE CONFUSE TREK WITH WARS?!

True story.  I was out at a park with some friends and some Force FX lightsabers.  We were dueling and having a good time when these, for a lack of a better term, ‘normal’ girls walked by and yelled “Are those life savers?  Like from Star Trek?” and started yelling that they wanted me to win against my male opponent because “GIRL POWAH” etc.  I turned my saber off and told me opponent to strike me down.  Not to make me more powerful than one could possibly imagine, but because I would not share a victory with people like that.

So, in short, it is possible to mistake the two.

Why can’t I live with you? I have no one to swordfight with :’(

I’d say it’s probably something to do with the literal ocean between us.  Also because I live in Dumbfuckistan, home of internet censorship.  If anything I might want to move in with you :P

Or Canada… Canada still speaks English, it’s not too far off, there’s plenty of snow, and where I have no doubt that all nations have their share of ignorant politicians, it’ll be a nice change of pace not having all our laws made by living antiques who have no place judging what they do not understand….

Dumbfuckistan *giggles*

Perhaps, perhaps. I plan on the UK, but who knows..if ACTA passes, I might have to move to..WAIT a bloody minute. Isn’t the ocean like..lawless? There was something about it on Futurama. Well, if I could get a wifi there..

Ah, international waters… The ancestral home of pirates!  I’ll need a few years to get funding for my airship though.  And to build the bloody thing.  There may not be wifi, but if all these damn internet neutering bills pass we can make a new internet and not let the stupid countries play with us.

COUNT ME THE FUCK IN THEN!