Pribek

Big news in the bagpipe world. Piper, Bruce Woodley, hopes to be the first person to play bagpipes in space. From Scotland On Sunday…

Woodley has become one of 16 finalists chosen by the Canadian Space Agency from 5,000 applicants, who were competing to represent the country in NASA space missions, including flights to the International Space Station.

God bless Canada. In all the years that we’ve been sending up these space missions, we have never sent a bagpiper; not once! It is long overdue. This is the kind of thing Neil Armstrong had in mind when he invoked the phrase; “Giant leap for mankind”.

Woodley says…

“I think it would be great fun to play bagpipes in space,”…

…”It might be a challenge to get a set of bagpipes ’space certified’ from the point of view of flammability,” he said. “Also, launch costs are high to the space station, thus weight might also need to be reduced to be practical for this purpose.”…

…”The space station and shuttle are pressurised to 14.7 psi (standard sea level pressure), but the shuttle also has the capability to operate at a reduced pressure – about 10.5 psi I think – for reasons related to spacewalks.

“I believe the Apollo spacecraft were all about 4 psi cabin pressure, or about 32,000 feet above sea level – in 100% oxygen environment. I’m guessing it would be very difficult to play bagpipes and have them sound like anything we hear on the ground without redesign.”

Flammability? Launch costs? Reduced pressure? Redesign!!??

C’mon! This isn’t rocket science. We can send dogs to space. We can tool around in recreational vehicles on the moon. If we can’t figure out a way to let this guy rip out a shredding bagpipe solo then what, I ask you, have we truly accomplished with all of this?

I was in Washington D.C. sightseeing about 20 years ago. This guy walked up to me, in front of the Capitol steps, and handed me a pamphlet. It said that the world was coming to an end and it gave an exact date; August 22nd or something. A couple hundred feet down the way, another guy handed me a deal that also said the end was coming but; different date. Like three weeks later.

So, I figured, at least one of them is wrong, and went about my business.

Here is the Mayan calendar.

I guess somewhere on there it says the world will end in 2012. Looks kind of cool. Why does the Mayan calendar go to 2012 when the Mayans only lasted until 1300 or so? Why would you do 700 extra years of work?

Here’s a site, Library of Date Setters of The End of the World!!!, that has a list of 220 different end of the world prediction dates ranging from 44A.D. to September 14, 2047. They think it’s coming but, question the methods most use.

Yes the end is coming, but all human predictions are wrong!

Date setters, making irresponsible predictions! Misleading the ignorant masses for higher TV ratings and book sales!

An untold number of people have tried to predict the Lord’s return by using elaborate time tables. Most date setters do not realize mankind has not kept an unwavering record of time. Anyone wanting to chart for example 100 BC to 2000 AD would have contend with the fact 46 BC was 445 days long, there was no year 0 BC, and in 1582 we switched from Julian Years (360 days) to Gregorian (365 days). Because most prognosticators are not aware of all these errors, from the get go their math is already off by several years.

Here’s my favorite from the early 70s.

A little cartoon, a little humor, perhaps the best way to sell doomsday.