Continuing the panoramic documentation of the recent trip:
Head-on shot of the XB-70. This one involved peeking though other displays to get this angle. This is another Big Friggen Image; at 300 dpi, it’d print out at 5.4 feet wide.
B-2 on the left, SR-71 in the middle. Photography of dark *and* light aircraft in this dimly yet harshly lit environment is a bit of a challenge. I suppose I should have worked on high dynamic range proficiency before this trip, but it sadly never occurred to me.
Entrance into the Cold War gallery.
Another balcony overview of the Cold War gallery:
The X-15 and the YF-12 are sorta crammed together:
With the rise of rapid prototyping, the prospect of easy home-made pistols of some reasonable quality is rising. However, it has always seemed to me that the hardest part of making a decent pistol was making a rifled barrel. Most of the home-made pistols you’re likey to see tend to be smooth bore for the simple fact that that’s a whole lot easier than rifled. But as it turns out, rifling a pistol barrel seems to be a lot easier than you might suspect. This guy shows how to go about making a simple rifled barrel using nothing much more than a cheap drill press, a Dremel tool and a hydraulic car jack. Couple a barrel like this with the easy-to-manufacture parts of the rest of a pistol, and making guns at home becomes something virtually any amateur can do. And, perhaps, something any amateur *should* do, especially in uncivilized places where such things are legally frowned upon.
If you want better, cleaner rifling, more complex machines can be made. Even so, this should be well within the capability of a decent machinist.
These are two wholly different manufacturing methods to create the same thing. Both are, int he grand scheme of things, quite simple and straightforward. Certainly simpler than laws that pretend to ban firearms.
Further much-ensmallered versions of the Museum panoramas…
Apollo 15, lifting bodies, XB-70, Keyhole spy satellite.
Titan IVm XP-75, P-59, tail end of the XB-70
Two views of Bocks Car, winner of the Battle of Nagasaki
B-2 and SR-71. Not so apparent at this resolution, but at full rez you can see a whole lot of little white splotches on top of the B-2. I’m guessing bird poop, as there were a few birds flapping around inside at least Building 4 while I was there.
In this time of chaos, when a barbaric ideology is causing havoc in not only the Middle East but also the civilized world, when the President is clearly delusional and his political opponents are even worse, when we have “anti-fascist” movements proving that fascism is a real threat in the world today by actually being fascistic… we need someone who can clearly and succinctly express how we all feel. And I believe that someone is Raedthinn.
Sick of “white privilege?” Sure, we all are, especially those of us who supposedly have it yet somehow don’t seem to get that monthly gift basket of goodies the White Cis Patriarchy apparently promised us. So, rather than deny it, why not invent some new forms of “privilege” for idiots to get upset about?
If I had five minutes, a modest camera and a tape measure, I could get the images and measurements I need off the MOAB on display outside the USAF Armaments Museum near Eglin AFB in Florida. Sadly, I’d also need to be *at* the museum, and that’s not likely to occur anytime soon. So… is anyone in the area, or going to be in the near future, and willing to take some photo-measurements?
The results – the MMA fighter had the “Master” on the ground within about seven seconds, then spent another dozen seconds or so repeatedly pounding said “Master” in the noggin. It was a classic rout… it was not even remotely close. So how’d this happen?
Well, think about it. Classical martial arts are kind of an art form… sort of like dance, with rules and traditions and ethics. Focusing on a specific martial art, such as Tai Chi (which, honestly, to me always makes me think of “old people moving slowly”), may make you an expert in that martial art… but it may also limit you to the moves associated with that martial art. But “mixed martial arts,” that’s another matter. Here, the goal is not to honor ancient traditions, but instead to beat your opponent into the dirt by whatever means necessary.
Now, admittedly, your average black belt could undoubtedly pummel me so fast I’d be indistinguishable from a screeching SJW in a matter of seconds. But if it came down to a fight between an Old School Traditionalist and an MMA fighter, or a Navy SEAL… I’m putting my money on the guy who’s job it is to beat the crap out of the other fella.
Traditional martial arts are necessarily hidebound… they are traditions, after all. Perhaps they have been finely honed over the centuries, brought to a level of perfection. And that’s fine, but don’t confuse it for “actually useful in a combat situation.” The Samurai are today seen as some sort of near-magical combatants, yet the Japanese military hardly employs them anymore. The *actual* Samurai got slapped around by a bunch of Japanese farm kids with rifles back in the 19th century. When the Japanese Empire decided to revive the Samurai “Bushido Code” and virtually worship the Samurai in the first half of the 20th century, they got smacked around by a bunch of American farm kids with rifles.
The katana, the chosen sword of the Samurai, is itself a fantastic example of what I’m talking about. Over a thousand years of so, Japanese swordsmiths created a beautiful sword… but imbued with with mystical claptrap. And if there’s one thing that doesn’t help your sword actually perform, it’s magic. The katana is viewed by many as being some sort of nearly perfect tool… the traditional manufacturing process creating a blade of remarkable strength, durability and sharpness, the killingest chunk of metal to be found. But… no. What those swordsmiths produced was a blade that would be regularly bested by a virtually identical blade made by machines using modern steel straight out of a steel mill.None of all that folding or tradition… just take some bar stock, hammer a bit, grind a bit, heat treat a bit, then go embarrass the hell out of the relatively brittle “traditional” sword. What the Japanese swordsmiths succeeded at was making not the best possible sword steel, but the best possible sword steel using the technology and science that they had. But their techniques were evolutionary dead ends. They made, in essence, the very best possible Thylacines. Great fits for their niche… until something better and more adaptable came along. In the case of the katana, what came along was Western science.
And in actual head-to-head competitions science will kick mystical traditions ass, every time. Where science will lose is not in the actual fight, but the propaganda. People are willing to believe nonsense over sense, especially if the nonsense makes promises that science can’t. Doesn’t matter if the nonsense can actually make good on the promise, many people will still buy it. So… will moving slowly make you capable of defending yourself against a mugger? Sure, why not! It’s an ancient tradition!
… that not only is Maxine Waters still “a thing,” but she continues to wield political power far out of proportion to the limited capabilities of her tragically limited little mind:
And while this next video is of pretty awful quality, it is important for one thing, if nothing else: it explains exactly why we had a housing bubble based on sub-prime mortgages a decade ago. Fascists like Waters threatened mortgage lenders to crank out criminally awful mortgages, under threat of punitive Federal actions. And as bad as it was then, the drive among the fascist class to enforce their idiot fiscal policies at the point of a sword remains.
