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USAF unveils the B-21

 aircraft, art, history, Hmm..., news, politics, projects  19 Responses »
Feb 262016
 

That’s right… B-21, not B-3. Looks like this:

B-21 art

US Air Force Unveils New B-21 Bomber

If you think it looks like the B-2, you’re not wrong, but it looks even more like the original ATB designs from before the B-2 configuration was nailed down:

atb_1981

Now, you may notice that in the B-21 artwork, no exhausts are visible. This could be because the exhausts are on the underside (very unlikely), or they are actually integrated into the trailing edge (unlikely), or the USAF simply doesn’t want to show the exhausts. Anyone who remembers the first artists impression the USAF released of the B-2 will remember that:

b-2_02

I’ve seen a lot of people cheesed off about this design, that it’s too much like the B-2. But… so what? If the goal was to design a long-range subsonic stealthy bomber, the B-2 layout is not far from optimal. The B-52 looked like the B-47; the 787 looked like the 777 looked like the 737 looked like the 707. This is due not to lack of creativity on the part of the designers, but to the laws of physics and economics.

Something I’d love to see… a new air superiority fighter designed for stealthiness and relatively low cost. One way to accomplish this? Rehash the LockMart F-22 layout. We know the configuration is stealthy. We know it’ll fly. So why *not* base a new design on the existing engineering?Save a whole lot of time, trouble and expense.

 

 Posted by at 6:09 pm

Durned furriners are stealin our furrin wimmins

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., ಠ_ಠ  5 Responses »
Feb 262016
 

If you ever catch basic cable after 10 PM or so, you’ve seen commercials that are just plain undignified. These sorts of commercials, catering to a male clientele that can probably be accurately  described as “desperate,” have been playing for decades and are nothing new. But there is a new one that has me a bit confused. It’s for a dating service… but one that specializes in “dating with women from Europe.” Assuming they *actually* bring over European women (as opposed to being a chat-line or something), it’d be my guess that they specialize in equally desperate women… probably refugees from Belarus or some such.

OK, sure, whatever. If you’ve watched late-night TV, you know the commercial. It’s on all the friggen’ time. But the question that has me stumped: the narrator is a guy reading a script pretending that he is a successful client, happy with his Woman From Europe. Ok, sure, whatever. But why is the narrator clearly a guy from *Europe?* He has an accent best described as “European trying to put on an American accent,” the result being sort of an aural uncanny valley, like listening to a subdued version of the “mid Atlantic” fake accent you hear from rich characters in old Marx Brothers movies.

So why would this be? If they are trying to appeal to American men, why would they use a European man as a model? My guess: the whole thing was actually produced in Europe, and the narrator was the best voice actor they could find who could put on an American accent… and to the producers European ears, the accent sounds convincingly American. But to at least *my* American ears, it sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

The end result is that it just doesn’t do the job of making me want to spend my money to bring over a European gold-digger woman.

 Posted by at 10:00 am

Cause has an Effect

 Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, ಠ_ಠ  5 Responses »
Feb 252016
 

Oddly enough, people seem to have lost their fear of AIDS. Sure, there are drugs that can fight the virus and extend the life of someone with AIDS; but if they stop taking the drugs, AIDS remains a fatal disease. You’d *think* that people would keep this in mind and behave accordingly, but you’d be wrong. There are some drugs that can be used as “pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP),” meant to protect you from getting HIV in the first place; and while they seem to be largely effective, they are not *completely* effective. Behold:

PrEP Fails in Gay Man Adhering to Daily Truvada, He Contracts Drug-Resistant HIV

To me, these drugs are somewhat akin to carrying a concealed firearm. Such a firearm, if you are an intelligent, sane person, is there to protect you in case something unexpected occurs. Someone undergoes Sudden Jihad Syndrome at the Piggly Wiggly, for instance, and you need the gun to defend your life. You know what that pocket pistol *isn’t* good for? Intentionally launching yourself into gang territory to find the local warlord and challenge him to a duel. Similarly… if you don’t want to get AIDS, you really shouldn’t have sex with people who have AIDS. Even if you are taking some drugs.

 Posted by at 7:57 pm

The benefits of political connections

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, news, Obamazombies, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Feb 252016
 

Anybody else? Decades in the slammer.

Former state Sen. Leland Yee sentenced to prison

Yee was a gun-grabbing State Senator from California who was put on the “Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll” by the Brady Campaign for, in part, co-authoring the nations first bill to require “micro-stamping,” where a gun would stamp an identified into each cartridge it fired. He tried to ban conversion kits. He was quoted as saying “It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear, there is no debate, no discussion.” He pushed bills to ban the sale of violent (read: fun) video games. 

Yee was also a gun-runner, nabbed trying to buy rocket launchers from Filipino Islamic terrorists to resell to someone who turned out to be the FBI. He has been sentenced to a whole five years.

Guess what his party affiliation he is. Go on, guess.

 

 

 Posted by at 4:32 pm

Transonic 767

 aircraft, art, history, projects  4 Responses »
Feb 242016
 

In the early 1970s, after the collapse of the SST program due to, in part, the rise in energy prices, Boeing, Lockheed, General Dynamics and NASA looked at the possibility of jetliners designed to fly economically right at the edge of the sound barrier. The idea was that there is an unavoidable spike in drag at Mach 1.00, but it would theoretically be possible to fly at, say, Mach 0.98 at relatively low drag. This would make the aircraft about 100 mph faster than conventional jetliners without being much more expensive. In order to pull this off, the jetliners would need to take advantage of every imaginable aerodynamic trick in the book… most obviously, area rule designing resulting in “wasp waisted” fuselages, and almost no straight lines… all curves. The problem is that this makes aircraft heavier and more expensive to build. Thus, no transonic airliners ever got any further than wind tunnel tests.

Below is a piece of Boeing art showing one of their designs for an Advanced Technology Transport. It was a Model 767 design, dash-number unknown.

transonic 767

 Posted by at 12:56 pm

Here’s the greatest threat to public order in the Netherlands

 Crazy, critters, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, religion, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  9 Responses »
Feb 232016
 

A pig hat. It can get ya arrested.

Apparently there are people in the Netherlands who are so incapable of controlling themselves that they’ll turn into murderous ragemonsters if they see a kids pig-hat, and so therefore these terribly provocative bits of apparel must be removed from the public square.

I suddenly wish I owned stock in the company that makes pig hats, because I suspect they’re going to become real popular.

 Posted by at 10:36 pm
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