Why not just shoot them?

 blather, Crazy, Gah., news  2 Responses »
Jan 062012
 

Hmmm.

Squatters in Texas Town Use Arcane Law to Claim Vacant Homes

In this case, a rather unusual definition of vacant: the actual homeowner in one case went away for a few months for chemotherapy, in another, was away for a few months for work. These were not abandoned homes, or home that had been left empty for years.

This being Texas, a few things come to mind: Castle Doctrine, and the fact that neighbors can use deadly force to protect each others property.

So… from a purely legal standpoint, couldn’t a homeowner bust into their own home and frogmarch the squatters out, and if they resit, simply plug ’em (and if the homeowner is away, or, as in one case, in seriously poor health, couldn’t the neighbors or homeowners association do that for them)?

This isn’t so much a question of whether such an action would be “right,” or “ethical” or “moral” (there’s no question… the answer is almost certainly “yes”), but whether that would be legal. The topic has come up before regarding the barbaric system apparently in place in Britain where squatters can move into your home while you’re away walking your dogs, but this would seem to be a dangerous thing to do in Texas.

More dangerous, of course, would be to let the squatters get away with this with their skins intact.

 Posted by at 1:01 pm

I think a mistake was made

 AARRRGH, blather, dumbassery, news, weapons  6 Responses »
Jan 052012
 

See if you agree with me that a minor error might have been made here:

Navy SEAL accidentally shoots self in head

A 22-year-old Navy SEAL was gravely wounded early today when he shot himself in the head at his Pacific Beach home while trying to convince a companion that the pistol he was showing off was safe to handle, authorities said.

I may not have had SEAL training, but I suspect that somewhere along the line there may have been a suggestion made to not point a gun at your own head and pull the trigger. I could be wrong, though.

 Posted by at 11:53 pm

Early Saturn First Stage

 drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jan 052012
 

Back about 1958, when the Saturn was still an Army project, there was some question about first stage propulsion. A million and a half pounds of thrust was needed; it could be provided by either eight H-1 engines (then under development, derived from the S-3 rocket engine used on the Thor and Jupiter MRBMs), or one F-1 engine (then under development). Shown here is an October 1958 Army concept for Saturn first stages using each engine arrangement. Note that the H-1 equipped version is noticeably shorter in length. Also note that the first stage is designed as a conventional rocket stage, unlike the clustered tanks actually used on the Saturn I.

 Posted by at 11:04 pm

Is Britain offline?

 blather  2 Responses »
Jan 052012
 

Hmmm. I can’t seem to bring up any of a number of British websites. The Daily Mail, BBC and Secret Projects Forum all seem to be unavailable. Could my local ISP have screwed something up?

All seems well now. Most likely something went screwy with my local ISP.

 Posted by at 7:47 pm

Reconstruction of Lockheed F-X Future Fighter

 aircraft, drawings, projects  No Responses »
Jan 052012
 

Lockheed Martin recently revealed a single illustration of what *may* be LockMart Skunk Works thinking on a Sixth Generation fighter for the 2030 or later timeframe. It wasn’t revealed in a report or press release, but instead in a calendar. It’s unclear whether this is a serious design effort or is just some computer generated doodling.

The design is jam-packed full of aesthetic neatoness. It appears to be a supercruising stealthy fighter, substantially more sleek than the F-22. It is a manned design, which has caused some quarters to get rather irritated at the whole idea, since the assumption is that a sixth-gen fighter will almost inevitably be an unmanned vehicle, either remotely piloted or autonomous. But as the recent RQ-170 landing in Iraq incident showed, unmanned aircraft do not seem to be entirely bug free (Conspiracy Theory Moment: “The Air Force made the UAV land in Iran to make sure that pilots keep their jobs.”)

I can’t say whether the fighters of the 2030-and-beyond period will all be unmanned, or whether there’ll still be some manned ones. But I can say that it’s damned sad that the next fighter isn’t expected to be available for twenty years.

Anyway, the illustration (which can be seen at the first link above) shows the design from an angle that does not well display the planform, but mostly from the side. Still, seemed like a design screaming out for a three-view. I gave it a shot… I like the side view, but I’m underwhelmed with my top views (there are three, since I’m very uncertain of the planform).

 Posted by at 7:31 pm

Today in Crazylaws

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, drawings, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics  3 Responses »
Jan 042012
 

Gah.

Illinois:  ID now needed for drain cleaner

Ah, yes, my original home state continues to embarrass. Because acid was used in an attack a few years ago, Draino and Liquid Plumr are now government-controlled substances requiring added levels of bureaucracy.

California:  CA judge rules Muslims harassing Jewish students engaging in “protected speech”

Hell, this wasn’t just “harassment,” it was physical assault. And according to the US District Court judge, attacking someone is “protected political speech.”

And some people wonder why it might make sense to have some judges come before Congress and explain how they reach the decisions they do. But then, this would be the same Congress full of the sort of people who want to make the world safe from plumbing products…

 Posted by at 7:29 pm

“Time Cloak”

 awesomeness, blather, science, science fiction  1 Response »
Jan 042012
 

Pentagon-backed ‘time cloak’ stops the clock

Ummm…

Short form seems to be that scientists at Cornell U hid an event that lasted 40 picoseconds. This was done by splitting a beam of light within a fiber optic cable… speeding part of the light up, slowing part of it down, and creating a “time lens” in between where an event was hidden.

Umm.

An obvious problem with scaling this up to a “real world” scale is the whole “speed up light” thing. It can be done in fiber optics, because the speed of light through the dense glass can be really slow compared to the speed of light in a vacuum, thus giving a lot of room for growth. But the speed of light in *air* is pretty much the speed of light in vacuum, at least as far as Everyday Stuff is concerned.

On the other hand, the article points out that the process could be used to make data transfer in a fiber optic cable invisible. This would be data that could not only not be decrypted, it would be data that a potential hacker or eavesdropper simply doesn’t know is there.

Three guesses who funded this. Hint: it rhymes with “DARPA.”

 Posted by at 6:51 pm

Nova Class I Designs

 awesomeness, projects, rockets, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Jan 042012
 

NASA artwork from September of 1963 illustrating two configurations for Class I Nova designs. The Class 1 designs were the lowest-technology of the three classes suggested, and involved the use of expendable vehicles and conventional propulsion systems.

Still, the Nova designs were sized to carry payloads of a million pounds or more, about four times that of the Saturn V.

A hi-rez of this illustration is available HERE.

 Posted by at 1:12 am

Another reason to avoid NYC

 Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons  10 Responses »
Jan 032012
 

Marine faces 15 years behind bars for unknowingly violating gun law

Short form: a former Marine faces between 2 and 15 years for doing a legal thing: possessing a firearm. He even had a valid concealed carry license.

Americans should not fear that if they drive over an arbitrary line within their own nation they will go from a law-abiding citizen in good standing to a criminal. New York, however, feels otherwise, and should be avoided at all cost.

 Posted by at 6:57 pm
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