Plasma rifle in the 40-watt range

 art, awesomeness, Crazy, science, science fiction, weapons, youtube  8 Responses »
Jun 082015
 

Just what you see on the wall, pal.

 

Practical applications are few, but, dayum. Now if he could get the individual lasers truly focused on a single spot, the ability to burninate things would go through the roof, but it’s still not quite a functional weapon (apart from blinding). But something that becomes obvious is the need for heat rejection. A true laser weapon would probably have to be water cooled. Interestingly, you’d probably end up with a crew served weapon hearkening back to World War One era water-cooled machine guns.

Browning and his 1917

 Posted by at 9:11 am

Electromechanical computer from the V-2 (A-4) Rocket

 art, awesomeness, eBay, history, Hmm..., rockets, science, spacecraft, weapons  2 Responses »
May 152015
 

Saw this on eBay:

German WWII electro-mechanical analog computer for the V2 rocket – A4 missile

The starting bid price is a bit rich for my blood…  $7500. But if the photos and the scan from the Christies catalog are accurate, it does seem to be vintage V-2 hardware. Not quite sure what it did or where it did it; since there are dials that a human was apparently meant to set, it would seem to be part of the aiming system (which was little more than “go that far then flop out of the sky,” with azimuth controlled by rotating the launch pad and, IIRC, some radio guidance to get it pointed in the right direction. It *might* have gone on the missile itself, or it *might* have been part of the launch infrastructure. Shrug. This unit seems to be missing some bits, such as the rather important dials.

A bunch of photos at the auction site.

V2computer1 (21) V2computer1 (10) V2computer1 (4) V2computer1 (3) V2computer1 (2) V2computer1 (1)

 Posted by at 6:53 pm

Russian rocket launch: not *quite* to plan

 AARRRGH, humor, news, rockets, russian empire, weapons, youtube  18 Responses »
Apr 222015
 

Appears to be an S-300 (NATO: SA-10 “Grumble”) surface-to-air missile demonstrating what happens when the pneumatic launch system poots the rocket out of the launch tube, but the main rocket motor fails to ignite.

This is not exactly an unprecedented event:

If only *all* the Russian anti-aircraft missiles worked this way, maybe there’d be one more Malaysian 777 in the world…

Of course, it’s difficult to beat *THIS* classic:

 Posted by at 9:23 am

Thankfully, many of our enemies are idiots

 Crazy, dumbassery, news, religion, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Apr 222015
 

Paris extremist’s misfire thwarts imminent attack on church

In short: a Surt worshipper had his car all loaded up with guns and even had notes on churches he was planning to shoot up… when he shot himself in the leg and called for an ambulance. He has been arrested and is linked with the murder of an apparently random woman.

Note: the title of the AP story seems to be badly written. The guy wasn’t an extremist about Paris, but about his death cult.

 Posted by at 8:31 am

It’s actually a pretty neat photo

 art, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, science fiction, weapons  4 Responses »
Apr 032015
 

Here’s your weird story of the day. After years of people posting photos of themselves on Facebook trying to look “gangsta” by posing with guns, someone seems to have finally been arrested for it. This case seems to fall squarely into the “what, don’t the cops have something better to do with their time” camp.

Chesterfield woman arrested for ‘Facebook thugging’

Apparently in the course of a stereotypical online argument, someone mistook her for someone else and must have said something about coming to get her. So she wrote “I’ll post a few actual pics of me so you know the difference when you come find me.”

And then posted this photo:
2742F53300000578-3024660-image-m-35_1428076024147

For some reason, this photo just seems awesome. I’m thinking… replace the toothbrush with a cigar and the pistol with a blaster, the hooodie with a silver spacesuit… and we have us an iconic 1950’s space heroine.

The Sharpie-brand eyebrows? In real-life they look cheesy as hell. But on Zagmar, Pirate Queen of Space, they fit right in.

 Posted by at 11:34 pm

At last… a flame thrower of your very own

 awesomeness, Crazy, Hmm..., news, weapons, youtube  8 Responses »
Mar 202015
 

Because who doesn’t want a flamethrower? The potential uses are endless. Pest control! Home defense! Personal defense against muggers! Weed control! Urban renewal!

The XM42 will soon be available in the 49 least Californian states for the low, low price of $700.

101

They are supposed to have an Indigogo page to help crowd fund this project… but if you click on it it jsut goes to the main Indiegogo page, and a search for XM42 doesn’t turn anything up. The campaign doesn’t begin until the 23rd, so maybe that’s why the page isn’t up. Or maybe Indiegogo might have decided that a flamethrower doesn’t fit in with their usual hipster development projects. I suppose we’ll see in a few days.

Some aspect of the design are puzzling. What makes it go, basically. There are, seemingly, no pressure tanks to squirt the gasoline out. Pumping it out mechanically is possible I suppose, but leaks would be catastrophic. It looks like there’s a small propane burner, so maybe it taps into that.

One wonders if the US government might be interested in buy a few thousand and loaning them to the Ukrainian government…

tumblr_lsm49u1KCQ1r16we7o1_500

 Posted by at 3:30 pm

Nukes over Ukraine

 Crazy, Hmm..., news, nukes, politics, russian empire, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  9 Responses »
Mar 162015
 

Here’s some good news:

Russia was ready to put nuclear forces on alert over Crimea, Putin says

Couple this with Putins recent vanishing act, and ya really gotta wonder what the hell’s going on over there. It’s getting harder and harder to *not* see Putin as an old-school Bond villain. Well, at least maybe the nuclear winter will counter the global warming. Glad to know we have such spectacular leadership in the US government these days to stand up to these shenanigans and rally the nation in a potential time of crisis.

 Posted by at 3:41 pm

The very best thing you’ll read all day.

 awesomeness, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., humor, news, religion, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  5 Responses »
Mar 112015
 

So, the trial of Boston Bomber Joker Whatshisname continues. Recently revealed evidence includes the inside of the boat where he was eventually found. He had scrawled a message on the inside of the boat, sort of a short-form manifesto explaining the Surt-worshipping creed that had caused him to decided blowing up random civilians was a good idea. And after he scribbled it… the cops showed up and poked some holes in the side of the boat with firearms. As a result, some of the missive was lost, due to having a sudden appearance of a bullethole. Thus the transcript uses [hole] where a bit of the original text was shot out. And the results are… well, entertaining.

I’m jealous of my brother who

ha [hole] ceived the reward of jannutul Firdaus (inshallah)

before me. I do not mourn because his soul is

very much alive. God has a plan for each person.

Mine was to hide in his boat and shed some

light on our actions I ask Allah to make me a

shahied (iA) to allow me to return to him and

be among all the righteous people in the highest levels

of heaven.

He who Allah guides no one can misguide

A [hole] bar!

I bear witness that there is no God but Allah

and that Muhammad is his

messenger [hole] r actions came

with [hole] a [hole] ssage and that

is [hole] ha Illalah. The U.S.

Government is killing our innocent

civilians but most of you already

know that. As a M[hole] I can’t

stand to see such evil go unpunished,

we Muslims are one body, you hurt

one you hurt us all, well at least that’s

how Muhammad (pbuh) wanted it to be [hole] ever,

the ummah is beginning to rise/awa [hole]

has awoken the mujahideen, know you are

fighting men who look into the barrel of your

gun and see heaven, now how can you compete

with that. We are promised victory and we

will surely get it. Now I don’t like killing

innocent people it is forbidden in Islam

but due to said [hole] it is allowed.

All credit goes to [hole].

Heh.

 Posted by at 3:52 pm
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