Hmm. One wonders what existential threat the German government foresees…
…the German government plans to bring back its Cold War-era requirement for people to stockpile enough food for 10 days and enough drinking water for five, as well as medicine and other supplies. The government is also planning to boost security by bringing in a nationwide alarm system.
Neat.
I don’t know if it has been apparent the past few months via changes in blogging, but I’ve been swamped with work. This is rather something of a change of pace… starting in June I’ve been working on a contract job that has provided real work and a real paycheck, something I’ve been devoid of lo these many years. It’s nothing classified, but I’d as soon not go into too much detail just now. In short, I am making a handful of CAD models that will be used to make physical models. This is work I’ve done for years for the likes of Fantastic Plastic. But rather than models that require small cardboard boxes to ship, these will require large intermodal shipping containers, and a substantial number of them, to send where they’re going.
You know, these things:
This has turned out to be rather challenging and labor intensive (oddly, something 50 feet long requires different engineering and level of detail than something 5 inches long) , to the point where it has shoved aside other projects I was working on, even some paid projects. That’s not so good, of course. But it’s real work with a real paycheck, and if the clients are happy, and so far they seem to be, it promises some *more* work.
So, perhaps less in-depth snark on the blog for a while.
Do you suffer the heartache of having just way too much 5.56mm ammo, with no way to burn through it all? Empty Shell, LLC, has the answer! Their XM556 Microgun is the hand-held minigun you’ve been waiting for (assuming you are a government agency, because unlike civilians, government agencies can *always* be trusted).
Rate of fire: up to 4,000 rounds/minute.
This thing *really* needs to be mounted on a steadicam harness.
Now, what *practical* applications are there for a weapon like this? A similar gun, the XM214, was built in prototype form by General Electric. It never found much use outside Hollywood (T2 and Predator, a few others), largely because the 5.56 round, despite what the media says, is not a particularly high power round, and the range is distinctly limited. So since the XM556 has even shorter barrels, meaning lower muzzle velocity and higher dispersion, it’ll be even less accurate. So, what can it be used for?
On the one hand…
Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonette wrote a book about whacking Osama Bin Laden. But he didn’t submit the book for review by The Authorities, and was therefore in violation of non-disclosure agreements. As a result, he has to pay back seven *million* dollars and forfeit all future profits, royalties, film rights and speaking fees.
So on the one hand, it seems like if you are a government employee and you break the rules, you can get thwacked *really* hard.
But on the other hand…
Hmmm.
An autistic Native American kid was spat on, yelled at and struck because of the political message of his shirt. Under other circumstances, this would be a clear case of a “hate crime.” Will that be the case here? Let’s watch!
The actual narrative of events, who threw the first punch, differs between the two people involved. But given that the other guy is the Executive Director of the White House Initiative of American Indian and Alaska Native Education, you’d at least *think* that one of them would have had the maturity to not get in a fight over a shirt. but then… it’s *this* White House.
Just wait till the *next* administration. Hoo boy.
Silly sailor, the law is applied differently for your betters. You should know this!
The future should provide a whole lot of examples of people using the “Clinton defense.” I imagine the great majority of them will still wind up getting prosecuted… because they’re not Clinton.
A collected edition of the extended versions of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit on Blu-Ray certainly sounds like a reasonable idea. This October, just such a collection will be released. Some of the official description:
– The Limited Collector’s Edition includes 30 discs featuring all six Middle-earth films in their extended edition forms, housed in six stunning faux leather books and a collectible Hobbit-style wood shelf. The one-of-a-kind wood shelf is crafted from solid wood with design selected by Peter Jackson.
– In addition to the extended edition release of every film, the collection also includes all previously released bonus content from both the theatrical and extended editions.
– Exclusive premiums designed for the collection include: · Spectacular 100-page sketch-style book with replica The Red Book of Westmarch, filled with original film sketches and new artwork · Original reproductions of exquisite watercolor paintings by acclaimed conceptual artists Alan Lee and John Howe, framable and wall-ready
So… as far as the actual movies and extras, it’s nothing new, same stuff as already released. But it comes with some kinda spiffy physical extras. So that’s cool. But there is one minor problem:
Ummm. How about no.
Apparently Peter Jackson wanted to create a bunch of new documentaries for this collected edition, but the studio shot that idea down. If you can explain why this is actually worth $800, congrats… you’re doing better than me.
In the era of Netflix and other ways of easily obtaining movies this might not be so useful, but Sunday morning at 2AM Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will air “Chain Lightning,” the 1950 movie with Humphrey Bogart as a test pilot flying something pretty rare at the time… a futuristic airplane that was actually built in mockup form for the movie. Much more common was for a real aircraft to be painted for the flick… or for simple stock footage to be used. While the stock footage option was cheap and lame, the fact is that the late 40’s into the 50’s produced so many aircraft prototypes that many could be introduced in a movie and most people would have had no idea what it was.
Perhaps surprisingly, I’ve never seen this before. Hurrah for DVR.
UPDATE: finally watched this this morning while working on other stuff. As far as plot, dialogue, characters… meh. Usual 1950’s stuff: Morons With Something To Prove act like idiots, people die, derring-do, blah, blah, blah. The movie had a lot more visual effects than I expected; and while pretty awful by current standards, they were probably fairly impressive at the time. The “JA-3” aircraft is never described as either a jet or a rocket, but given the apparent lack of an inlet, it must be a rocket. But one with truly astonishing performance; standard range for this thing was 4,000 miles.
The JA-3 was represented in three ways… the full scale mockup for closeup shots, a scale model for in-flight shots (photos of the model as it existed some years ago just before being auctioned off are available HERE) and a North American F-86 for distant in-flight shots. the F-86 stock footage wasn’t all that bad, in context.
The mockup was built on top of a P-39, so scaling the design should be straightforward.
Doesn’t seem to be on Blu-Ray, but it’s available on DVD.
*If* true (it seems to actually be more in the “rumor/not-quite-ready-for-scientific-publication” stage… not helpful is the “anonymous sources” aspect of the story), this could be FRIGGEN’ SPECTACULAR. An Earth-like planet only 4.25 lightyears away puts another Earth within practical starship distance. Sending humans there is still a prospect for some generations down the line, but tiny laser-pushed probes could get there within the careers of people currently working in the space industry.
There are undoubtedly problems. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf; this means that the habitable zone around the star is quite close-in. That in and of itself if not a problem, but problems do arise:
But even with those issues… *IF* this turns out to be an accurate find… giggitty!
I just won on ebay an auction for an Avro Canada report on a concept for a mobile Minuteman launcher:
Since it’s being sent from Canada, it could be a good long while before it gets here. But when it does, it’ll end up on the APR Patreon catalog. Want a copy of the report? Sign up!
