My tenuous, tangential link to the “adult daycare centers”

 aircraft, art, blather, Crazy, Forward!, history, Hmm..., Meh., politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 262023
 

Because in present Day, everything has to be All About Me…

 

Several years before I left Utah I was contacted by an aerospace historian/ museum feller about a potential project. It seemed that a big tech company was purchasing an old Hughes Aircraft hangar with the intention of turning it into office space; I was asked if I might be interested in building a large (IIRC, wingspan in excess of twenty feet) replica of the Hughes H4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” to be hung in the  large open space.  My response was something along the lines of “hell yes,” but it didn’t go much further than that original discussion; like a lot of things it just faded away. Still, I’d dug out what plans I had of the Hercules and started dreaming up how I was going to do it… I’d model it in 3D CAD, lay out the internal structure and have ribs and longerons and frames and all cut out of quality plywood, clad probably in *really* good, really thin plywood, sanded baby-ass smooth and painted appropriately. I had discussions with a local wood shop about getting the many, many parts CNC milled. Woulda been a thing of beauty… and something I could have built several of and presumably made bank on. But it was not to be, and in the years since I’ve not given the project a second thought. Until yesterday…

 

So there was this TikTok video by some vapid person yapping about her day of meaningless food consumption and unproductivity at the Google LA office, built into a former Hughes hangar. Lo and behold, on display is a “sculpture” of the Hercules hanging from the ceiling, visible about 8 seconds in:

My old brain fired up and I contacted my acquaintance who had originally presented me with the idea years ago… and, yup, that’s the place, and that sculpture is what they went with rather than my planned subscale replica. More info and a decent photo of it is here:

HistoricHangarBecomesHistory-MakingWorkplace

There are a number of things that jump right out at me. First, the volume of space available in the hangar is vast… and it *seems* like the volume of space actually used for offices and such is *small.* It appears to be horribly inefficiently utilized. And second, here’s the description of the Hercules sculpture:

Comprised of 2,800 individually hung chrome spheres, this perceptual sculpture by Michael Murphy appears to be an amorphous silver cloud until seen from the sole viewpoint where it reveals itself as the “ghost” of the Spruce Goose.

 

It’s a “perceptual sculpture,” only visible correctly from a single vantage point. Basically, it’s not “real” as such, it’s kinda like a hologram made of ball bearings. That’s… interesting, I guess. but I can’t help draw some analogies: What I had suggested was a real, tangible Hercules, visible as such from all aspects and viewpoints. What they went with was smoke and mirrors. What I had believed the place was going to be was a workplace where people got stuff done. What it ended up being was, apparently a holding facility for people who did nothing of value all day.

 

Would have been a nice project though. Oh well.

 Posted by at 8:42 pm

I’m shocked! Well, not that shocked…

 Crazy, Hmm..., Meh., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 242023
 

So Musk bought Twitter and laid off something like half the workforce… and Twitter *promptly* failed to implode. It seems to be functioning just fine, indicating that the bulk of those canned were not vital to the operation of the company. Now Google and Meta and a bunch of other tech companies are going through massive rounds of layoffs. Will this bring those companies low? There is no reason to assume that Twitter was uniquely loaded with dead weight. In fact, the “influencers” who work at the various tech companies and produce videos of their days certainly indicate that those companies can certainly afford to shed a lot of useless employees and not suffer in the slightest.

Behold Yet Another “day in the life” video that revolved not around actually accomplishing anything, but luxury and eating and eating and eating…

Now, it’s always possible that she was a diligent hard worker who daily added value. But it’s interesting that that aspect of her day got less attention than one snack.

 

Also of potential interest: here’s her TikTik page. Description: “life, outfits & personal growth journey.” Nothing about actually *accomplishing* anything. Lots of videos of her trying on new bits of clothes or lounging somewhere. Vapid, empty, soulless. The amount of money spent on new outfits seems likely to be immense. Does the TikTok thing bringing in income? I dunno, maybe. Perhaps she’s making buckets of cash through these meaningless videos; if so, good for her. But the skills and abilities needed for that – being an adequate clothes horse – seem wholly unrelated to doing a job at a technology company. Scrolling down and glancing at the videos, none of them seem to display any interest or enthusiasm for coding.

 Posted by at 10:07 pm

The Narrative did not survive contact with The Reality

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 232023
 

So there was a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, Saturday, killing ten in a predominantly Asian-ethnic area. This *promptly* led to the usual incredibly predictable takes:

1) Booga booga white supremacy

2) Argle bargle we needs more gun control

Well… whoopsie:

Man found dead after police standoff in Torrance was the Monterey Park shooting suspect, sheriff says

The killer in question was one Huu Can Tran, a Chinese immigrant. Certainly an unusual form of white supremacist. He was also 72, which is unusual for mass murderers.

Additionally, the weapon used has been identified as a Cobray M-11… which is ALREADY ILLEGAL IN CALIFORNIA. Yet this feller seemed to obtain one. For those unfamiliar, the M-11 is a brick of a gun. It’s a one-handed pistol fashioned somewhat after the MAC-series of submachine guns, famous for *really* high rates of fire in full auto… but the M-11 is *semi* auto. It’s unergonomic. It’s heavy. It’s inaccurate. It rusts easily. It’s big. And even though it’s heavy, the recoil is difficult to deal with given the mass of the innards flacking back and forth with each shot. Why would someone own one? Because it’s fun-ish and cool-ish. Is it a weapon good for mass murder? No more so than  the weapons anti-gunners want to give to the people anti-gunners would have kicking in the doors of gun owners. It shoots the same 9mm round as any other boring-ass pistol, and it does so less accurately, less comfortably and less quickly than your standard 9mm Glock. Why is it illegal in California? Because California, that’s why.

Once again: we don;t need more gun control, we need crazy people control.

 Posted by at 10:38 pm

What is it with them and *food*?

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., Meh., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 222023
 

Every time one of these narcissistic videos comes out from someone “working” at a tech company, there is *vastly* more time spent yapping on about the food they seem to be constantly consuming than the work they seem to take no interest in. Note that even in the second video, the “oops, I’ve been laid off and entered the world of unemployment,” she shows herself consuming, yammers on about consuming, spends Odin knows how much money (that she isn’t making anymore) on empty calories as a way to feel better.

 

Another of these vapid “day in the life of an adult daycare consumer” videos:

And another:

 

And another:

And yet another:

And oh my god another:

 

I guess I get why they don’t discuss their work. Several explanations come to mind, actually:

1) They assume nobody is interested in it

2) *They* are not interested in it

3) They realize, consciously or not, that if they showed people what they do they’d get laughed at because people would realize their jobs are worthless

4) They’d get laughed at because people would see they’re *bad* at their jobs

 

Fine, great. But still… their days are now described as “I ate something that someone else made, then I ate something else, then I ate another thing I couldn’t hope to explain how or where it came from, then I ate some more.”

 

I fully expect that if I ever got it in my head to do a video about *my* work day, it would be crashingly dull. It’s dull now that I work from home, doing CAD and writing and blueprinting; it woulda been dull when I worked in aerospace and honestly couldn’t actually talk about much of it without getting security in a snit. But it never would have occurred to me to spend a large fraction talking about the PB&J sammich I had, or the can of Great Value chicken noodle soup, or the can of pop from the vending machine, or the handfuls of dry cereal or the Gubmint Cheez.

 

 Posted by at 10:30 pm

School isn’t for everyone

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 212023
 

Virginia boy who shot teacher Abigail Zwerner told another he was going to set her on fire

The *six* year old who shot his teacher a while back seems to have been a real charmer.  He had a history of being someone who should have been drop-kicked out of a public school classroom directly into a “facility” of some kind. And of course the bureaucracy was cool with that behavior:

School downplayed warnings about 6-year-old before teacher’s shooting, staffers say

On one occasion, the boy wrote a note telling a teacher he hated her and wanted to light her on fire and watch her die, according to the teacher’s account. Alarmed, the teacher brought the note to the attention of Richneck administrators and was told to drop the matter, according to the account. … On a second occasion, the boy threw furniture and other items in class, prompting students to hide beneath their desks, according to the account. Another time, the teacher alleges in her account, the boy barricaded the doors to a classroom, preventing a teacher and students from leaving.

 

Yeah, no. Kids such as that do *not* belong in society. Further evidence:

 

“Our son suffers from an acute disability and was under a care plan at the school that included his mother or father attending school with him and accompanying him to class every day. Additionally, our son has benefitted from an extensive community of care that also includes his grandparents working alongside us and other caregivers to ensure his needs and accommodations are met. The week of the shooting was the first week when we were not in class with him. We will regret our absence on this day for the rest of our lives.”

If the parents have to not only accompany the kid to school but *stay* there with him… school ain’t the place for him.

When I was that kids age, my family had a pet St. Bernard. Great dog, as my faint and vague memory serves, but he started to act like maybe he was sick. In the end, my parents sent him to go “live on a farm.” Perhaps a similar sort of farm can be found for kids like this. Because installing him within classrooms:

1) Endangers teachers

2) Endangers other kids

3) Damages the other kids education

4) Costs excessive resources

5) Doesn’t benefit *anybody* including the monster child in question.

 

There is no rational or valid reason for putting threats like this in a classroom. If you would not put a rabid racoon in a classroom, why a psychopath?

The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.

 Posted by at 11:29 pm

More disturbishment out of Russia

 aircraft, Crazy, Hmm..., news, politics, rockets, russian empire, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 212023
 

Below, a twitter thread discussing a recent increase in the appearance of air defense systems in and around Moscow, including Vlad Putin;s digs. The optimistic way of looking at this: every missile placed near Russia is a missile not placed near Ukraine. The pessimistic outlook: you generally don;t go to this kind of bother and expense to take weapons systems *away* from an ongoing conflict unless you have a reason to. It seems the Russians seem to think that the conflict is going to expand to aircraft attacking Moscow. Do they think the Ukrainians are going to do that? Or are they expecting NATO to do that? if so, keep in mind that the excuses being used include “it was a pre-emptive strike against Ukraine because they were going to attack *us.*”

 

Another possibility is they’re afraid of elements of the Russian Air Force deciding to go a wee bit off mission.

 Posted by at 5:44 am

I am neither shocked nor upset

 Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., news, politics, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 202023
 

Los Angeles hit-and-run driver who plowed into mom and baby in stolen car is murdered after light sentence

In August 2021, then-15-year-old Kristopher Baca stole a car, ran into a mother and her baby in a stroller, then drive away and struck a truck. Baca was, at the time, out on parole for *poisoning* a girl’s drink. He was then given a few months in a “diversion camp.”

 

Hmm. He tried to poison one girl, then stole a car, tried to run over a young mother and her baby, then fled the scene… and all he got out of it from the Los Angeles justice system was a few months in camp. Huh. Color me stunned that a couple days ago he got himself gunned down in the street, because he sure sounds like a real winner, a prince among men, an avatar of moral virtue and common sense. He *should* have been locked away for a term of some years after the poisoning, but actually punishing criminals is not something D-cities are really into.

 

The video at the link above is worth watching: there are some genuinely good people on display there, alongside the oxygen thief. The truck driver, in particular… I *hope* that not only did his/her insurance company not screw him/her over, but in fact gave him/her a new truck with roo bars.

 

The video in the link below shows the aftermath. A passenger from the offending car is hopping around (he’s got a pre-broken leg in a cast) while the driver is still in the car and people are gathered around… and one witness is *really* PE’ed. He lays into both the passenger and the driver with threats and profanity and red rage bordering on insanity… and I’m all there for it. I don’t know if the guy is the truck driver, but he is *really* angry… and every last bit of that is deserved. If the same passion had been displayed by the prosecutors after Baca tried to poison someone, he would still be in the graybar hotel and still alive… and that mother and her child wouldn’t have been injured by a jackass in astolen car. But at least he’s dead now, and that’s for the best from all evidence.

 

Guy goes insane after witnessing a hit and run of a baby in a stroller

 Posted by at 11:56 pm

That’s a weird way to “deNazify” Ukraine…

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., news, nukes, politics, russian empire, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 192023
 

I recently had a disturbing online conversation with a Russian aeronautical expert on the subject of Ukraine. One can reasonably expect a Russian will have a different point of view on the subject than a westerner would… but this was an *experience.* In short: It’s good and proper that Russia exterminate the Ukrainian people, because their culture, history and identity don’t exist; they’re a fiction, it’s all part of Russia and Russias destiny to retake that plot of land. “The history of Ukraine began with the betrayal in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1991 and will end in 2023.” Any who stand against the Russians goals deserve death and the nuking of western/NATO cities would be a small price to pay for Russia reclaiming it’s former empire.

 

Yeesh.

 

And of course one of the main excuses for why the “special military operation” is a wonderful thing? The need to get rid of all the Nazis in Ukraine. Ukraine, under the leadership of a democratically elected feller who I understand to be a Jew, is somehow being controlled by Nazis. Uh-huh. After years of weirdo whackaloons here in the west constantly banging on about fascists and Nazis – by which they mean anyone with politics to the right of FDR – I have no sympathy for Russians bleating on about Nazis. Especially when *this* is who the Russians are sending into battle against the Ukrainian people:

 

 

 

 

It’s bad enough that Russian leadership is clearly bugnuts, but that this has seeped out into the general populace is unnerving. I was told that Putin is felt to be too soft on the west, and: “If Kadyrov becomes president, the whole world will remember the beautiful and humane Vladimir Vladimirovich with tears.”

 

There have been more and more reports that NATO countries are running out of weapons and ammo. Again, this is both good and bad news. The bad is obvious. But the good is that the West is figuring this out *now* while our economies are still running and our factories are still standing. If the relatively tiny amount of ordnance the west is sending to Ukraine is drying up western armories… that’s a damned good sign that we need to start stocking up in a serious way.

 Posted by at 11:00 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries