‘Mulan’ singer CoCo Lee dead at 48 following suicide attempt
It would seem to have been a bit more than an “attempt.”
Jul 062023
Jul 052023
So the Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians are gonna blow up the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and then blame it on Russia. That’d certainly be a neat trick for the Ukrainians, since the Russians occupy and control the place. Ukraine claims the Russians are going to blow it up and blame it on Ukraine, but it seems that the wind would tend to blow the fallout into Russia.
Ukraine, Russia accuse each other of planning to attack Europe’s biggest nuclear plant
There have been two similar “false flag” attacks in this war: the Nord Stream pipeline and the Kakhovka dam. Small problem… sober analysis seems to indicate that both of those were destroyed by incompetence and/or neglect rather than direct action. But the nuclear power plant is shut down; it should be nicely inert. So if it explodes… somebody exploded it. Who is more likely to do that, Ukraine or Russia? Ukraine could probably only pull that off with some sort of major assault… a lot of troops, planes and armor, aided by HIMARS and the like raining down. While possible, that could hardly be disguised as a Russian attack. And of course, Ukraine wants the reactor back. It’s theirs, after all. Never mind the environmental devastation of its destruction, it’s worth a bucket of cash. Repairing it would be cost prohibitive, and resuming power generation would be an economic boon.
On the other hand, the Russians could well have mined the place. At the push of a button their could turn it into garbage.
Why would they do something so crazy? I dunno. Ask Prigozhin. Why do Russian military/political leaders do *anything,* and is there anything resembling reason, logic or sense to it?
If it happens… things will likely get sporty. An attack on Ukraine is not an attack on NATO. But intentionally causing a reactor meltdown or setting fire to spent fuel rods? That *might* send clouds of fallout over Germany, Poland and the like. They could consider that a radiological attack, and might invoke Article 5. And then it’s NATO vs Russia.
Jul 042023
That movie was utterly forgettable. Why bring it up? Because I was reminded of the trailer for the movie, went and watched it again, and checked out the comments. Grok.
Near the end, when the beat perfectly matched the Phalanx systems firing? Followed by Wonder Woman swinging through the sky by lassoing *lightning?* Utterly silly… and entirely awesome and badass. And then… the movie came out and it was forget-a-mess.
Jul 042023
Spiffy CG animation showing what will *hopefully* appear in the sky soon… Starship hot-staging off of Superheavy.
Jul 042023
This is something else.
@bean_posts accidentally cursed with the burden of self-awareness #oops #cat #cats #existentialism #fyp #noregrets
Jul 032023
Elephant guns at 82,000 frames per second create some interesting phenomena. Especially interesting are the very brief flashes upon contact with the ballistics gel.
Jul 032023
Ryan released this piece of art in 1958 depicting a tailsitter fighter somewhat like their X-13. However, this was clearly a much larger vehicle, operational rather than experimental. More than anything it resembles a slimmed-down and stretched-out Avro Arrow. It’s unclear that this was based on an actual engineering study, rather than artistic license.
This would seem to be an interceptor, presumably installed somewhere in Europe within hidden underground bunkers. It’s not at all certain to me that in the event of all out war there’d be any real point in having these aircraft be able to land vertically as their bunkers would probably be radioactive glass by they time they got home… and without the dedicated equipment needed to catch the aircraft, they’d be unable to land.
Jul 012023
As I don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese or Klingon or whatever this is, I can’t follow along with the mission control. But there are a few subtle hints that there are a few hiccups.
Jun 302023
The “journalists” here are freakin’ irritating, but the story is interesting. A *brief* clip of the audio of the *original* Wilhelm scream, with an alternate take and audio direction.
Jun 302023
A NASA article on the status of the X-57 “Maxwell” says that they’re wrapping up work on it, with no mention of it actually flying:
X-57 Project Creates Paths Toward Electric Aviation
The X-57 is a modification of an existing conventional aircraft to be all-electric. Lots of new technologies were integrated and apparently some useful advances were made, but the real issue remains batteries. Until the energy density of batteries gets a *lot* better, electric-powered aircraft are going to remain pretty niche. Flying the X-57 would be nice, but with the existing batteries it’s kind of dead in the water.
What would be great is if NASA kept working on the X-57 at a low level. The technologies onboard would be occasionally upgraded, and when meaningfully better batteries – or perhaps some sort of modular fuel cell system, perhaps, or indeed a small nuclear reactor (a man can dream) – become available, integrate them into the vehicle and at last fly it.