“Bio Weapons Labs” in Ukraine

 AARRRGH, blather, Hmm..., Meh., politics, russian empire, science, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Feb 152023
 

The idea that there are bioweapon labs in Ukraine is pretty effectively debunked by Ryan McBeth:

The fact that there are *biological* labs in Ukraine strikes me as entirely unsuprising… and entirely to be expected. Ukraine is an agricultural nation, and where you find agriculture *and* modern society, you find laboratories that study agriculture. And a large part of that is studying the diseases and pests that can damage agriculture. The midwest of the United States is littered with such labs, many in local universities, where researchers study everything from anthrax to locusts, aphids to fungi. But the Russian propagandists months ago made a big, fake deal of this, and a distressing number of people in the West fell for it.

 Posted by at 2:09 pm

I think I know what they shot down…

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., Hmm..., I'm from the government, Meh., news, politics, weapons, Worldwreckers, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 132023
 

You can listen to the audio of the Lake Huron shootdown in the video below, via The Drive:

 

 

It’s small (the size of a “four wheeler,” probably meaning an ATV), it’s dark metallic and gives a good sun glint, has strings dangling from it, looks like a “container.”

Hmmm.

 

 

 

The government might not be protecting us for Chinese spying, and certainly isn’t protecting us from what might be an industrial/environmental disaster on the scale of Chernobyl, but hey, they’re lashing out at party balloons like there’s no tomorrow.

 

Pay no attention to the massive chemical release behind the curtain:

 

 Posted by at 11:51 pm

Yeah, this is about right…

 Crazy, humor, Meh., youtube  No Responses »
Feb 112023
 

One might think that “entertainment industry weirdo performs satanic dance number, sponsored by Pfizer” would be the sort of thing I’d yammer on about. But… this schtick is old. What, am I supposed to act surprised that a weirdo is a weirdo?

 

 

I’m of two minds about people who mess about with Satanic imagery. On the one hand, since I don’t believe in Satan… meh. You just look like a goober. On the other hand, some of these people *do* believe in Satan. And if *you* believe in Satan and you’re playing at Satanic stuff… it makes me wonder about your sanity, in the same way I’d look askance at a Cthulhu cultist. But in this case, I suspect that the Freedom Toons people are correct: it’s a desperate bid for attention, an attempt to fill an inner emptiness that will never, can never, be filled with cheap and hollow pursuits.

 

And I suspect the Pfizer people didn’t see this coming. Like they didn’t see Project Veritas coming.

 Posted by at 7:25 am

The barn door has closed

 aircraft, Meh., news, politics, rockets, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Feb 042023
 

Now that the Chinese “spy balloon” has crossed the entire United States, the Air Force *finally* got the order from Biden to shoot the thing down. Looks like a fighter launched a missile… a missile that doubtless cost way more than the balloon. Happened over Myrtle Beach, South Carolina… you know, the far side of the country from where it entered.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:53 pm

My tenuous, tangential link to the “adult daycare centers”

 aircraft, art, blather, Crazy, Forward!, history, Hmm..., Meh., politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 262023
 

Because in present Day, everything has to be All About Me…

 

Several years before I left Utah I was contacted by an aerospace historian/ museum feller about a potential project. It seemed that a big tech company was purchasing an old Hughes Aircraft hangar with the intention of turning it into office space; I was asked if I might be interested in building a large (IIRC, wingspan in excess of twenty feet) replica of the Hughes H4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” to be hung in the  large open space.  My response was something along the lines of “hell yes,” but it didn’t go much further than that original discussion; like a lot of things it just faded away. Still, I’d dug out what plans I had of the Hercules and started dreaming up how I was going to do it… I’d model it in 3D CAD, lay out the internal structure and have ribs and longerons and frames and all cut out of quality plywood, clad probably in *really* good, really thin plywood, sanded baby-ass smooth and painted appropriately. I had discussions with a local wood shop about getting the many, many parts CNC milled. Woulda been a thing of beauty… and something I could have built several of and presumably made bank on. But it was not to be, and in the years since I’ve not given the project a second thought. Until yesterday…

 

So there was this TikTok video by some vapid person yapping about her day of meaningless food consumption and unproductivity at the Google LA office, built into a former Hughes hangar. Lo and behold, on display is a “sculpture” of the Hercules hanging from the ceiling, visible about 8 seconds in:

My old brain fired up and I contacted my acquaintance who had originally presented me with the idea years ago… and, yup, that’s the place, and that sculpture is what they went with rather than my planned subscale replica. More info and a decent photo of it is here:

HistoricHangarBecomesHistory-MakingWorkplace

There are a number of things that jump right out at me. First, the volume of space available in the hangar is vast… and it *seems* like the volume of space actually used for offices and such is *small.* It appears to be horribly inefficiently utilized. And second, here’s the description of the Hercules sculpture:

Comprised of 2,800 individually hung chrome spheres, this perceptual sculpture by Michael Murphy appears to be an amorphous silver cloud until seen from the sole viewpoint where it reveals itself as the “ghost” of the Spruce Goose.

 

It’s a “perceptual sculpture,” only visible correctly from a single vantage point. Basically, it’s not “real” as such, it’s kinda like a hologram made of ball bearings. That’s… interesting, I guess. but I can’t help draw some analogies: What I had suggested was a real, tangible Hercules, visible as such from all aspects and viewpoints. What they went with was smoke and mirrors. What I had believed the place was going to be was a workplace where people got stuff done. What it ended up being was, apparently a holding facility for people who did nothing of value all day.

 

Would have been a nice project though. Oh well.

 Posted by at 8:42 pm

I’m shocked! Well, not that shocked…

 Crazy, Hmm..., Meh., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 242023
 

So Musk bought Twitter and laid off something like half the workforce… and Twitter *promptly* failed to implode. It seems to be functioning just fine, indicating that the bulk of those canned were not vital to the operation of the company. Now Google and Meta and a bunch of other tech companies are going through massive rounds of layoffs. Will this bring those companies low? There is no reason to assume that Twitter was uniquely loaded with dead weight. In fact, the “influencers” who work at the various tech companies and produce videos of their days certainly indicate that those companies can certainly afford to shed a lot of useless employees and not suffer in the slightest.

Behold Yet Another “day in the life” video that revolved not around actually accomplishing anything, but luxury and eating and eating and eating…

Now, it’s always possible that she was a diligent hard worker who daily added value. But it’s interesting that that aspect of her day got less attention than one snack.

 

Also of potential interest: here’s her TikTik page. Description: “life, outfits & personal growth journey.” Nothing about actually *accomplishing* anything. Lots of videos of her trying on new bits of clothes or lounging somewhere. Vapid, empty, soulless. The amount of money spent on new outfits seems likely to be immense. Does the TikTok thing bringing in income? I dunno, maybe. Perhaps she’s making buckets of cash through these meaningless videos; if so, good for her. But the skills and abilities needed for that – being an adequate clothes horse – seem wholly unrelated to doing a job at a technology company. Scrolling down and glancing at the videos, none of them seem to display any interest or enthusiasm for coding.

 Posted by at 10:07 pm

What is it with them and *food*?

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., Meh., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 222023
 

Every time one of these narcissistic videos comes out from someone “working” at a tech company, there is *vastly* more time spent yapping on about the food they seem to be constantly consuming than the work they seem to take no interest in. Note that even in the second video, the “oops, I’ve been laid off and entered the world of unemployment,” she shows herself consuming, yammers on about consuming, spends Odin knows how much money (that she isn’t making anymore) on empty calories as a way to feel better.

 

Another of these vapid “day in the life of an adult daycare consumer” videos:

And another:

 

And another:

And yet another:

And oh my god another:

 

I guess I get why they don’t discuss their work. Several explanations come to mind, actually:

1) They assume nobody is interested in it

2) *They* are not interested in it

3) They realize, consciously or not, that if they showed people what they do they’d get laughed at because people would realize their jobs are worthless

4) They’d get laughed at because people would see they’re *bad* at their jobs

 

Fine, great. But still… their days are now described as “I ate something that someone else made, then I ate something else, then I ate another thing I couldn’t hope to explain how or where it came from, then I ate some more.”

 

I fully expect that if I ever got it in my head to do a video about *my* work day, it would be crashingly dull. It’s dull now that I work from home, doing CAD and writing and blueprinting; it woulda been dull when I worked in aerospace and honestly couldn’t actually talk about much of it without getting security in a snit. But it never would have occurred to me to spend a large fraction talking about the PB&J sammich I had, or the can of Great Value chicken noodle soup, or the can of pop from the vending machine, or the handfuls of dry cereal or the Gubmint Cheez.

 

 Posted by at 10:30 pm

I am neither shocked nor upset

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 202023
 

Los Angeles hit-and-run driver who plowed into mom and baby in stolen car is murdered after light sentence

In August 2021, then-15-year-old Kristopher Baca stole a car, ran into a mother and her baby in a stroller, then drive away and struck a truck. Baca was, at the time, out on parole for *poisoning* a girl’s drink. He was then given a few months in a “diversion camp.”

 

Hmm. He tried to poison one girl, then stole a car, tried to run over a young mother and her baby, then fled the scene… and all he got out of it from the Los Angeles justice system was a few months in camp. Huh. Color me stunned that a couple days ago he got himself gunned down in the street, because he sure sounds like a real winner, a prince among men, an avatar of moral virtue and common sense. He *should* have been locked away for a term of some years after the poisoning, but actually punishing criminals is not something D-cities are really into.

 

The video at the link above is worth watching: there are some genuinely good people on display there, alongside the oxygen thief. The truck driver, in particular… I *hope* that not only did his/her insurance company not screw him/her over, but in fact gave him/her a new truck with roo bars.

 

The video in the link below shows the aftermath. A passenger from the offending car is hopping around (he’s got a pre-broken leg in a cast) while the driver is still in the car and people are gathered around… and one witness is *really* PE’ed. He lays into both the passenger and the driver with threats and profanity and red rage bordering on insanity… and I’m all there for it. I don’t know if the guy is the truck driver, but he is *really* angry… and every last bit of that is deserved. If the same passion had been displayed by the prosecutors after Baca tried to poison someone, he would still be in the graybar hotel and still alive… and that mother and her child wouldn’t have been injured by a jackass in astolen car. But at least he’s dead now, and that’s for the best from all evidence.

 

Guy goes insane after witnessing a hit and run of a baby in a stroller

 Posted by at 11:56 pm

Kinda like university students going on strike

 art, Crazy, Hmm..., Meh., news, politics, science  No Responses »
Dec 192022
 

Artists stage mass protest against AI-generated artwork on ArtStation

 

At best they’ll *slightly* delay the development and deployment of AI that will render them utterly obsolete. Welcome to being just like everybody else.

So wouldn’t it make sense, rather than *not* producing art right now, to instead take this time to crank out as much art, and the best art, so that they can to try to maximize their income potential while they actually can? Artists are no more going to prevent the introduction of AI art than factory workers prevented automation.

 Posted by at 11:37 pm
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