Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - January 8, 2025 [TRex]

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety.

This is the Wednesday night ONT.

Flight 7 for SpaceX Starship is currently scheduled for Monday, January 13. SpaceX released more details of changes to the equipment and goals and objectives of the flight. The flight will feature the latest update for the Ship, a simulated Starlink payload deployment, an attempted catch of the booster and a simulated catch of the Ship, and more. As Elon says, excitement guaranteed.

Best wishes to Horde or Horde adjacent caught up in the SoCal fires. We are not hearing good things from people we know there and we are a long way from being done. Devastation. Homes, churches, schools, businesses, etc. are being wiped out. The fancy parts of town, the more ordinary neighborhoods, and everything in between looks like post war Dresden. No matter whether you are Paris Hilton or Joe Six Pack, it is awful for all. Prayers for those impacted and prayers for those fighting the fire.

Update from the ONT 2025 Prediction Challenge:

37 participants made guesses for the Yes or No event quiz.
19 participants made guesses for the financial numbers quiz.
Every participant for the numbers quiz also attempted the event quiz.

Collective Horde wisdom:
Ammo prices remain unchanged, gas prices fall, S&P 500 up slightly, lumber and Ford F150 prices rise slightly, Smith & Wesson, Tesla and Home Depot all rise modestly. The Euro gets weaker and Bitcoin rises slightly.

We already have a development for the event quiz with Trudeau's announcement. 26 Hordelings called it. There is otherwise a lack of consensus on the events quiz but RFK and SpaceX Starship launches look good. A majority of the Horde projects a Supreme Court vacancy.

Thanks for playing along. It will be interesting to see how it turns out!

TRex finds vintage assembly lines fascinating for unknown reasons. These recently found their way to my laptop and here we are. Can anyone (other than AOP) place a date on these?

Well played Atari.

Did not know where to put this one. Did not feel right to send to CBD for the food thread, but there is some crafting and assembly involved, so maybe the Hobby Thread? When in doubt, put it in the ONT.

Saw this and thought it had to be AI. Not so fast... Robby the Robot made an appearance at the Sands Hotel & Casino in 1956. No record of his winnings or losses though.

"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."

The climax of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" takes place at Sad Hill Cemetery. Tuco, Angel Eyes and Blondie meet up to discuss stolen Confederate gold. Rock, paper, scissors would not do so they opted for a Mexican Stand Off. Before the exchange of gunfire, the movie shows Tuco running in circles through the cemetery in search of Arch Stanton. TRex will let others opine on the characters, plot and deeper meanings of the movie. Instead, we will focus on the set and the soundtrack.

In real life, Sad Hill Cemetery was not a cemetery. It was built from scratch for the move in 1966 and is located north of Madrid, Spain. You might say it is in the middle of nowhere. The enormous fake cemetery was about 300 meters in diameter and had more than 5,000 grave markers. It was built by several hundred Spanish soldiers.

After filming ended, it was left intact but abandoned for nearly 50 years before fans found and restored the location. It can be visited but is not easy to get there. The restoration story was the subject of a 2017 documentary called "Sad Hill Unearthed."

Music for the film was composed by Italian composer Ennio Morricone. Instead of writing the music after filming, Morricone wrote the music at the same time so the film and music could inspire each other. "Ecstasy for Gold" is the music that plays as Tuco runs and stumbles through the cemetery. Others have played it and used it, but none as much as Metallica for live shows. The movie clip, in both sound and vision, is the last thing that plays on the big screens in the arena or stadium before Metallica takes the stage. On some occasions, the band plays its own version.

The ONT gives you Metallica playing Ecstasy of Gold:

Waning: do not click here unless you are wise in the ways of Metallica and want more.

Good news! Yellowstone may not go boom!

But a new study suggests that there is nothing to worry about in the near future: There is not enough molten material pooled in one place to trigger the sort of violent eruptions that have caused massive disruptions in the past. The study also suggests that the primary focus of activity may be shifting outside of the caldera formed by past eruptions.

That has allowed the research team to build a three dimensional map of the molten material underneath Yellowstone and to determine the fraction of the material in a given area that is molten. The team finds that there are two major sources of molten material that extend up from the mantle crust boundary at about 50 kilometers below the surface. These extend upward separately but merge about 20 kilometers below the surface.

While they collectively contain a lot of molten basaltic material (between 4,000 and 6,500 cubic kilometers of it), it's not very concentrated. Instead, this is mostly relatively small volumes of molten material traveling through cracks and faults in solid rock. This keeps the concentration of molten material below that needed to enable eruptions.

Can we collectively agree that the Guinness Book of World Records has jumped the shark?

An Indian stuntman earned a Guinness World Record by stopping 57 electric fans in one minute using his tongue.

The man has other Guinness World Records titles including the most nails inserted into the nose with a hammer in one minute (22) and the heaviest vehicle pulled by a swallowed sword (4,285.78 pounds). TRex is all for feats of personal skill and dexterity, but not everything warrants an "official" World Record.

This looks so awful that it might be a cult classic candidate (and that is coming from a dinosaur):

Today (January 8) is the birthday of David Bowie and Elvis Presley. Tankdemon expects content. TRex is still unhappy with Mr. Bowie for what he did to Major Tom. To avoid Horde unrest:

Random:

BTO for the big ONT finish:

Random BTO trivia:

The "Overdrive" reference in the name comes from a Trucking magazine of the same name.

BTO is Canadian.

BTO was founded in 1973 by three Bachman brothers: Randy, Robbie, and Tim along with Fred Turner.

Randy Bachman was previously with The Guess Who. He wrote an early version of "Takin' Care of Business" but got no traction with the band. He changed the lyrics later an made a new version work with BTO.

Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking? Come out and play. For the record, TRex is not a candidate for the title of Miss America.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:55 PM

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