A straightforward explanation of why rockets sound the way they do:
Many years ago there was some random internet crackpot arguing that active sound cancellation systems could be added to the tail end of a rocket to make it virtually silent. Watch this and see if you can figure out how to use a point-generated cancellation wave to silence a noise-generating system that is essentially a cone dozens of meters long.
This happens in both the UK and the USA (and elsewhere): people with some sort of cause decide that they way to get their point across is to block traffic. This isn’t merely an inconvenience; this can cost people jobs and, in the case below, doctors appointments, and quite possibly worse.. In the US, it is perfectly legal to protest: the Constitution by way of the 1st Amendment guarantees it:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Note, though, two important points:
Blocking traffic is not petitioning the Government. And when you intentionally piss off the public, you’re hardly “peaceably assembling.” For people trapped in their cars, I don’t see why it’s not considered kidnapping or at least unlawful arrest.
The British police are seen here doing *nothing.* They are in effect enabling the protestors in their efforts to ruin the lives of regular folk. But they also don’t seem to be doing much to stop the few decent citizens who are dragging the jackholes out of the road. So how would they respond if someone were to reasonably gently drag someone off a road and zip-tip them to a pole? Rifle through their pockets? Relieve them of their shoes and other apparel? Bundle them into unmarked vans and drive off with them?
General Dynamics is showing off their next-generation main battle tank. And, shockingly, it’s an actual piece of hardware rather than a computer generated bit of flim-flam. If this gets put into production, it will differ from the current Abrams by:
I’m a bit stumped about the saw-tooth skirts on the side. Other than that, it looks sufficiently sci-fi. Note that the turret, which is now to be unmanned, is of somewhat lower profile, making the tank a slightly smaller target from the sides. However, as we’ve seen recently a whole lot of tanks get taken out from above. The “AbramsX” won’t be any smaller in that regard. Whether it’ll be any safer from a top attack remains to be seen, though Trophy has a good reputation.
My late cat Raedthinn also knew how to open doors. He figured it out when I briefly lived in an apartment with door *handles*; he watched me use them, figured out what was going on and would reach up and pull the handle down to open the door. When we got back to door *knobs* he knew how they worked, but he could rarely get enough leverage on them to open doors. But “rarely” isn’t the same as “never.”
If your cat is opening doors when you don’t want him or her to do so, don’t get mad at the cat. Cat’s doing what a cat’s *supposed* to do. Be mad at yourself for being outsmarted by a critter with a brain the size of a walnut.
The Kerch Bridge that connects Russia to Crimea partially collapsed after an explosion – possibly a car bomb – went off overnight. A parallel span with a rail line had a fuel train at the time; several of the tanker cars caught fire. All in all, quite an impressive mess.
In related matters, it seems that the deeper strategy behind the Wagner Group recruiting Russian criminals has become clear:
"Wagner’s forces attack only so far before sending inmates with little support forward to face Ukrainian guns like 'cannon fodder'…tactics have left Ukrainian forces in the region with a flood of prisoners as the inmates frequently surrender." @Tmgneff https://t.co/mbDGljdfsh pic.twitter.com/7MMaYRnlZD
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) September 26, 2022
The prisoners, it seems, were never meant to be useful as any sort of fighting force, and barely even as cannon fodder: instead, they are being simply dumped into Ukrainian hands. This empties out Russian prisons, saving them some money, and are now Ukraines problem. Ukrainian military forces have to deal with the POWs on the battlefield; then the tattered Ukrainian economy has to deal with housing them. The Russians, it seems, views them as deserters and won’t trade them for Ukrainian POWs.
Genius. Evil genius, but genius nonetheless. It’s largely the same strategy that Turkey and such have used against Europe with floods of “migrants.”
Neato:
The music that’s mandatory for this sort of thing, but that NASA somehow failed to use:
If Putin absolutely loses his mind and decides to nuke UK, how might he go about it? The below analysis assumes a total of two ICBMs are used against the UK. Not to utterly destroy the country, but to turn it into a humanitarian nightmare and distract from Ukraine. Assuming Russia succeeded in setting off these warheads on the chosen targets… yes, Britain would very quickly be in very, very serious trouble. But I have the sneaking suspicion that even without NATO backing the Brits just might remember that not all that long ago their nation used to have a backbone, and as a result British nukes will quickly start appearing in the skies of Russia.
If one assumes this scenario and it actually ends with just the targets in Britain the video suggests (let’s say that five seconds after it’s announced that Russian forces have nuked Britain, the Russian people/military rise up and string Putin and his lackeys from lamp posts and start begging to not get nuked in response), the future of Britain would become very interesting indeed. Probably Britains biggest current nightmare is the vast number of foreign colonists. But if Britain ceases to be the land of free bennies, it’s safe to assume that many, if not most, if not *all*, of these “migrants” will pick up and migrate somewhere else. There has been a whole lot of lack of British pride/patriotism on display in many of these immigrant communities; there doesn’t seem to be anything holding these people in place. And if things get really bad in Britain, one wonders how tolerant the natives will be for antagonistic extra mouths to feed.
But I suspect that if Britain catches two ICBMs, they’ll soon catch more as a response to the British response. Might not be a whole lot of Britain left in the end.
Far and away the best thing to happen if Putin actually gives the order is if he very quickly has an unfortunate health episode, before said order can be carried out.
And do not drop your battlefield missiles off the back of a truck:
Heck, you drop ’em on the streets of Russia, you can’t sell ’em to the Ukrainians.
It baffles and distresses me to know that people who were born *after* the religious attacks of 9/11 are old enough to vote and join the military and be screwed over by the tax system. I didn’t see this now nearly year-old remastering of the Jules Naudet video of the first airplane impact until just now. This was one of the most astonishing things ever caught on video, now clearer than ever before.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Those days are gone.
Gotta wonder why some people are like this.