Looting

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 012021
 

Ugh.

You know how in the movies when there has been an earthquake or a flood or a kaiju outbreak, the National Guard or the cops show up and someone issues an order to shoot looters on sight? Yeah, in the US that ain’t gonna happen unless things have *really* broken down. Such an order would be *monumentally* illegal.

Still and all, though…

A pity more of them don’t end like this one:

I understand the argument that it’s not worth it for a lowly employee to try to stop a criminal in order to save a billion dollar corporation some money. But if the corporation loses money, said employee will be out on his ass, getting no pay whatsoever. And what’s more, the message given to the criminal is that criminality is acceptable. This will incentivize *more* criminality, inevitably leading to crimes against individuals, their properties and bodies. It would of course be best for society if the looters here are found and thrown into the same speedy justice system that has seen some of the January 6 folks imprisoned for *months* in solitary without trial. The home addresses of these looters should be published; if that leads to their homes being robbed while they’re in the hoosegow… well, we sure wouldn’t want that to happen.

Of course, the politicians and activists who promoted policies that decriminalized theft and defunded the cops should be remembered.

 Posted by at 8:19 pm

They don’t all like each other

 cats, photography  No Responses »
Oct 012021
 

Speedbump and Buttons are pals. But Banshee *hates* Buttons. So even on those nights when it gets cold and cats form themselves into a fuzzy high volume to surface area lump, getting all three together just doesn’t happen.

 Posted by at 5:28 pm

Orbital HL-10

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Oct 012021
 

A 1964 Boeing design for an orbital HL-10 derivative, to be used for space station logistics. This would be launched atop a Saturn Ib. Cargo would be carried up int he adapter, which would be expended; passengers would go up and down within the body of the spaceplane. A heat shield would cover the canopy until after re-entry.

 Posted by at 5:24 pm

Modern Gyrojet

 awesomeness, history, Hmm..., rockets, science, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Sep 282021
 

This feller made himself some Gyrojet rounds. Their performance is… meh. I can see some clear ways to improve the design; lead weight in the nose of the case, nozzles swaged into the rear of the case rather than pinned, properly formed propellant, cast with a machined teflon mandrel to create a multi-fin grain for high initial thrust and very brief burn time. And use better propellant; the stuff he used is sugar-based… fine for amateur model rockets, but you want *good* propellant for this application. Ammonium  perchlorate oxidizer, aluminum powder fuel, HTPB “rubber” as the binder. Throw in some iron oxide to goose up the burn rate, some superglue to speed cure time, and hey presto, about as good as it gets. Deployable fins might improve stability at the cost of additional cost and complexity.

Further: consider cutting down the case length and bonding a pointier brass, bronze, copper or steel nose to it to improve stability, aerodynamics and penetration. Other propellant grain options exist; one I’d like to see more work on is a thin sheet of propellant, perforated to turn it into a mesh screen, rolled into a tube with the layers separated by thin strips of bonded-on propellant. A whole lot of surface area, very fast burn, labor intensive to manufacture.

 

 Posted by at 9:26 pm

Boeing B-47 Stratojet & B-52 Stratofortress: Origins and Evolution

 aircraft, awesomeness, B-47 and B-52 Origins and Evolution, books, drawings, history, Hmm..., news, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Sep 282021
 

My next book is slightly behind schedule, but it is coming. I was recently sent the first “proof” of the book after the graphic artists laid it out; a bit of tinkering yet, but it is nearing completion. I thought it might be interesting to post a shot of the last page.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 9:32 am

Arizona audit results

 Forward!, history, Hmm..., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Sep 282021
 

Despite what the media ran with, the results of the Arizona election audit demonstrated *serious* issues that should be investigated and resolved.

Will they be, though? Given that a rational examination of the facts show that Arizonas “election” of Biden should be decertified, putting the current resident of the White House in jeopardy of being shuffled off to Shady Pines, it seems unlikely.

 Posted by at 6:59 am
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