Sometimes I look at some of my goofier projects like the “2001 Briefcase Computer” and I think to myself “that’s actually pretty cool.” Then I see guys like this and I know that my nerd-cred is minuscule.
Jun 152023
Jun 142023
Where the case is made that fandoms are composed not of people laser-focused on a single mono-topic, but who are *generally* nerdy, conversant in a range of fandoms, some related, some not, but all somewhat similar in having canon and lore and the like. The point being that when franchises and IPs are taken over by people who are *not* nerdy, they cannot relate to the fans, and end up making a mess of the product. They have fundamentally different worldviews.
Jun 122023
The story goes: an Amazon driver delivered a package. Nobody was home, but the automated doorbell made some sort of innocuous announcement. The driver, who was wearing headphones, misheard what the robot said, decided that the robot did a racism, reported that as such to Amazon… and then the homeowner had his Amazon account locked. This included “smart home” devices, locking out some of the functionality of his house.
This story, if true, argues for several things:
1) Don’t have “smart” features that can be turned off by someone else on a whim
2) Perhaps companies should be prohibited from having this sort of authority
3) “Someone said something racist/sexist/offensive” should at the very least be accompanied by verifiable documentation of the incident before *anything* is done. False accusations should be met with punishments similar to but exceeding those that an accurate accusation would have resulted in.
Jun 102023
Even with a specially made setup and at close range, it’s difficult. This should drive home the difficulty and impressiveness of hit-to-kill interceptors that take out incoming warheads or missile from tens of *miles* away at closing velocities far greater than those of mere bullets.
Also: bullets don’t as a rule fuse together; rather, they explode in a shower of flattened lead fragments.
Jun 102023
A convincing case is made that the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed not by military action, but through incompetence.
Jun 072023
Hmmm.
Jun 032023
An incident from December 2022:
And another MiG 31 comes in for a landing, spewing fuel at a prodigious rate…
There seems to be something wrong with the Russian Air Force lately, lots of planes seem to be having trouble. I’m sure we can all agree that the best thing would be for the Russian Air Force to ground their aircraft for a bit. Probably put them all on trucks and trains and send them to, say, Germany and Poland and Finland for inspection and disposition.
Jun 032023
It’s been long enough that “Dr. House” *could* make a comeback (he *might* be getting out of prison about now…). Saddling him with Dr. Murphy could be entertaining as hell. Will it happen? No, it’s about as likely as Disney making a good Star Wars movie. But it’s fun to think about.
Jun 022023
Today I swung by “The Davenport,” the century-plus old apartment building that partially collapsed a few days ago. Roads were closed off for a radius of a block or two around it so I couldn’t get very close in my car, and I didn’t have the time to find someplace to park and walk. Ehhh, oh well. Anyway, a lot of information has come out about it; the city of Davenport has released a bunch of inspection reports and other documents going back several years showing that it has been falling apart for some time. Bricks have been popping out of the face of the building for years. It looks like the sort of place that your average person would have been able to look at and go “Nope” and run to some other accommodations.
Someone’s gettin’ sued.
The City of Davenport website with the documents:
https://www.davenportiowa.com/cms/One.aspx?portalId=6481456&pageId=19580321
In retrospect this sort of thing is not too surprising. A lot of the buildings around here are old brick structures, and The Davenport was only a few blocks from the Mississippi river. “500 year floods” seem to happen every few years now; this had *got* to have an effect. Whether water seeps into the ground that far inland I don;t know, but having tens of thousands of tons of new watery overburden from time to time has got to cause the ground to flex at least some. There are also the occasional earthquake; small by the standards of even Utah, but if you have a brick building not built with earthquakes in mind… that’s not so great.
In all honesty, “The Davenport” looks like a *lot* of buildings in this part of the midwest. Built a century ago, having seen better days. Like our roads and bridges, the infrastructure has not been well looked after. I won’t be surprised if the next few years are filled with increasing tales of buildings and bridges falling. Imagine if the dozens of trillions dumped down the black hole of welfare were instead spent on repairs, maintenance and replacements of structures that needed it.
Jun 012023
A recent Mexican TV news piece showed a cartel member wandering about with a shoulder-fired AT-4 anti-tank rocket slung over his shoulder. A number of commenters immediately leaped to one or both of two wrong conclusions:
1: It’s a Javelin missile
2: It’s a missile we gave to Ukraine, which they then turned around and sold on the black market.
Number 1 is easy enough to debunk; it’s simply not a Javelin. Number 2 is more troubling: but then there’s a little detail on the launch tube that makes it clear that wherever the cartel got this thing… it’s not something to fret about too much.