Nov 202012
Nov 202012
Oh my.
Crazy Amusement Park Ride Gives Women…
Go on, guess what it gives them. Yes, yes, Oh God Yes, guess what it gives them.
Click the link, crank up the volume and watch the YouTube clips. At work. Surrounded, as much as possible, by the local womenfolk. You’ll get a free visit to HR! Won’t that be nice?
Nov 202012
I seem to recall that it used to be that if you wanted to immigrate into the US, you had to demonstrate that you wouldn’t be a *burden* to the US. Well, forget that.
Welcome to USA.gov: GOVERNMENT BENEFITS
Depending on your immigration status, length of time in the United States, and income, you may be eligible for some federal benefit programs. Government assistance programs can be critically important to the well-being of some immigrants and their families. Frequently, however, there is a lack of information about how to access such benefits. Benefit programs can be complicated and you may be given misleading information about how they operate.
The links below will lead you to official government websites describing a range of assistance programs.
Gah.
So… anybody care to explain to me why we’re bringing in people that need welfare right off the bat? What, are we running short on poor people as it is?
Nov 202012
Twinkies, Wonder Bread Carry on in Canada Post Hostess
Hostess products are still being produced in Canada due to the trademark & brand name belonging to a different company. Canadian Twinkies I think are acceptable But if Hostess is bought by a Mexican company… I’m not sure I’d risk it. Montezumas Revenge is too great a risk. And if Hostess is bought by a Chinese company… no way. Replacing Yellow Dye #5 with Cadmium Yellow seems a likely outcome.
Nov 202012
A relatively well-known and very early design for a Nova vehicle. It is interesting in that it has only a slightly more powerful first stage and seemingly smaller and heavier upper stages than the Saturn V, yet was designed to put a very heavy lander directly onto the lunar surface.
Nov 192012
Here’s a site that uses Google Maps and some sorta computer magic to overlay nuclear weapons effects over the target of your choice:
Ground Zero II
You have to choose from a limited selection of nukes, rather that imputing the parameters yourself. They range from a 1 kton suitcase nuke, to the 50 mton Tsar bomb… to the K-T impactor.
Nov 192012
A harbor for Akutan, but no road to it
The US Army Corps of Engineers built a $29 million harbor two miles from the Innuit town of Akutan (year-round population: 75) but didn’t build a road between the two. That’s ok, because:
Air service to Alaskan island ends despite new $75.5 million airport
The airport for Akutan was built six miles away on another island (Akun). Granted, the people can’t use the harbor to access the airport, since they can’t get to the harbor… but they can take the 2007-vintage “Suna X” hovercraft from Akutan to Akun. Except for the fact that the British hovercraft is broke down most of the time. Mail service used to come in via a Grumman Goose amphibian… but when the old harbor at Akutan was modified to accommodate the hovercraft, the Goose could no longer run up the ramp there. So Akutan has a shiny new airport that they can’t actually get to most of the time.
Awesome.
Keep in mind: the same types of bureaucrats making these infrastructure decisions will be making your health care decisions.
Nov 192012
Girl killed in acid attack for looking at a boy, say parents: ‘It was her destiny to die this way’
Short form: a 15-year-old girl in Islamabad, Pakistan, died after her mother threw acid in her face because he turned to watch a boy ride by on a motorcycle. The way the article is written, it seems the mother threw the acid in her face almost immediately. So… a few ponderables:
1: Do Pakistani parents normally walk around with containers of acid Just In Case?
2: These are our allies???
3: Can we *please* get on with building a few hundred ten-terawatt-class breeder reactors, space-based solar power satellites, lunar PV arrays, thorium reactors and, hopefully, fusion reactors and hook them up to TDP plants so we can get ourselves off oil so we can then build a wall around the middle east and related environs? Sure, the smell of smoke and rotting corpses wafting downwind will be pretty rank for a few years, but after thirty or so years, the gates can be opened and colonization and repopulation expeditions can begin.
Nov 192012
If you remember the movie Aliens – and if you read this blog, it’s a safe bet you do – one of the sci-fi elements you’ll recall is that all the soldiers had little video cameras on their helmets. In the mid 1980’s, this was of course a bit fanciful… any decent video camera would weigh several *pounds.* But those days are over; cameras you can mount to a helmet are now *smaller* than the ones in Aliens. And as it turns out, American soldiers & Marines are, in fact, going into combat with helmet cams.
Note: these are actual fighting men in actual combat. That means there’s some NSFW language. So if you’re at the office, crank it up, man!
A firefight with danger-close support from A-10s. The A-10 opening up with that monster GAU-8A gatling gun adds a certain special something to the proceedings.
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In this one, the solider gets shot. The description says that the round didn’t penetrate his body armor… another feature that Aliens got right, and that American soldiers in prior wars might have done well to have had.
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A firefight from the viewpoint of a machinegunner. You can occasionally also hear one of his buddies light lighting the Taliban up with a shotgun… kind of the quintessential American combat firearm. Note that, as in many/most firefights in reality (rather than Hollywood), the bulk of the firing is suppressive firing… shooting not at individual enemies, but just in their general direction to make them keep their heads down. That’s why it takes tens and even hundreds of thousands of rounds, statistically, to kill a single enemy.
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And a firefight in what sure looks like a giant patch of weed (with the ultimate combat commentary at about the 0:40 mark):
[youtube yRPCNUzkqXk]
Nov 192012
The D190 designation was the catch-all for a wide range of tilt-duct vehicles Bell designed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The D190B was a rescue version, intended to go after downed pilots and the like. Other versions were similar, but designed to mate up with a C-130 in flight; the C-130 would transport the D190 to the vicinity of a rescue and would transport it home again, greatly increasing range and lift capability of the D-190. Another version was designed to similarly mate up with flying command posts and Air Force One, to transfer supplies and personnel.
