Jun 252017
 

A USAF film about a remarkable incident in 1964 when about 83% of the vertical tail of a Boeing B-52 testing gust loads over Colorado got snapped off. The Aircraft managed to fly all the way to Arkansas and made a safe landing.

The B-52 is a helluva plane.

The B-52 was carrying two Hound Dog missiles and had a cheerful safety orange paint job. It’d make an interesting model, I would think.

 Posted by at 2:23 am
Jun 242017
 

One of the down sides to the rise of the internet is that it has allowed for intercontinental phone scamming. But one of the upsides is that the same technology has allowed those who know how to ruin the day of scammers on the far side of the planet.

A scam that has become quite popular in recent years is a robocall that tells you that you’re in trouble with the IRS, and to call back at number XYZ. If you do so, you encounter someone with, typically, an Indian accent and a surprisingly whitebread American name. They then proceed to try to get you to give them your bank account info. Supposedly this is to pay off the money you owe the IRS, but obviously the true purpose is to drain your accounts and to fill theirs.

So if you get one of those “IRS” robocalls, hang up and delete it and move on with your life. Unless, like this guy, you have the tools to do something incredibly entertaining for you and frustrating for them.

 Posted by at 6:34 pm
Jun 242017
 

Is your day just too normal? Is your WTF tank running dry? Well, rejoice! David Lewandowski has, after a gap of some years, returned to grace the world with another round of crazysauce.

First there was “Going to the store”

Then there was “Late for Meeting.”

 

 

Now at long last there’s “Time For Sushi.”

This is what it feels like to go mad. Are the stars at last right? Has sunken R’lyeh risen from the waves? Are dogs and cats living together?

 Posted by at 3:16 pm
Jun 242017
 

When Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs” came out, my main thought was “this Star Wars parody is a bit late in coming out, should’ve come out *years* ago.” Well, guess what. It *did* come out years ago. Thirty of ’em, in fact, having opened on June 24, nineteen hundred and friggen eighty seven.

I’m’a go cry now.

 Posted by at 5:47 am
Jun 232017
 

… for McDonalds.

McDonald’s hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks

In short, a major corporation has concluded that machines are better than no-skill humans, even at minimum wage. And here’s the thing: as time goes on, the machines will get better, more reliable and cheaper… while no-skill humans will remain the same.

This to me is a pretty good argument for reducing the minimum wage to something nearly trivial… say, $3 an hour.  Min-wage burger flipper jobs are *supposed* to be entry-level temporary work, work that helps teenagers learn the ropes of responsibility. Show up on time, do decent work, learn to take orders, figure out how to advance. But if the minimum wage is raised so high that minimum wage jobs simply go away, then what will unskilled kids do to get skilled? Go straight from Junior High to jobs making $30K/year? I don’t think so.

 Posted by at 12:31 pm
Jun 222017
 

New photos released from Star Trek: Discovery show three things of interest:

 

1: Have these people never seen a transporter room in *any* star Trek series? STD is set approximately at the same time as the original Star Trek pilot, “The Menagerie.” Which looked like this:

2: They’re wearing some sort of minimal body armor. Not entirely new for Star Trek… security guards wore armor (including helmets) in ST:TMP and STIII)

3: Their phasers, at least, look like they are actually based on TOS-era phasers. It would be odd if the one design element that they actually carry over from actual Star Trek is the one design element that they should feel pretty free to change. After all, during “The Menagerie,” starfleet’s sidearm looked like this:

 Posted by at 8:33 pm
Jun 222017
 

As anyone who has watched cable/satellite news since at least 9/11/2001 knows, when the all-important “Breaking News!” thing flashes across your screen, you can rest reasonably sure that they’re not going to tell you anything they haven’t been telling you for the last 10 hours. The BBC had a magnificent example of that just a few days ago when their system glitched out and for about 4 minutes the “News At Ten” kept flashing “Breaking News” and random clips interspersed with a silent and rather glum looking anchorman Huw Edwards. It’s surprisingly entertaining, for all that virtually nothing happens.

 Posted by at 12:46 am