Go ahead and *try* to justify the monumental level of stupid that Bubbles displays here:
Only in America does "liberation" mean going back to work.@AOC sits down with @anandwrites to talk about why a return to normalcy isn't enough in a post-coronavirus world. SEAT AT THE TABLE premieres tonight at 10p. #seatatthetable pic.twitter.com/fNE9reHeKG
— VICE TV (@VICETV) April 22, 2020
I look forward to the day when she returns to the ranks of the unemployed.
Since Fingers the cat died almost two weeks ago, there’s obviously not much to say about her as far as updates. There is, however, possibly something to say Fingers-adjacent. After I took her to the vet for the last time and she didn’t come back with me, my other cats hardly seemed to react. This is not surprising… at the best of times cats are often not very demonstrative, and Fingers was hardly the most social of social butterflies. So there was doubtless some time when the other cats simply assumed that she was off on her own somewhere. But in the past week or so, Buttons has developed a quirk: he goes around the house calling out in the most mournful fashion, and will often run up to me and yell at me, demanding *something.* Exactly what that is, I can’t say, but it’s something new. His “I want attention” and “I want food demands” are well known. I have a suspicion that this *might* be a “bring Fingers back” demand.
Fingers was in the Utah house when Buttons gained entry. In fact, they interacted somewhat while they were still outside cats, if memory serves; it may be that Fingers is an older memory for Buttons than I am. So if any of the cats misses Fingers, it should be Buttons.
How much more Russian could this be and the answer is none. None more Russian.
Three cheers for the Leydenfrost Effect, where a bit of surface moisture promptly boils and creates a thin layer of steam that protects the underlying surface of the guys skin from the liquid hot magma attempting to turn his hand into a charcoal briquet.
Cool and all, but I suspect this is the sort of thing you don’t want to spend a whole lot of time demonstrating.
In 1974 Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm studied a twin-engine derivative of the F-104 Starfighter, largely because West Germany had themselves some F-104’s that were showing their age. At first glance the design looks pretty much like a stock F-104, but from above it’s clear that it has two engines.
This illustration came from a 1983 paper about the development of the TKF/J-90, an early competitor for what would become the Eurofighter.
The paper that the above illustrations came from has been scanned and made available to above-$10 APR subscribers and Patrons.
These old Aurora and Revell model kits are back in production under the Atlantis Models brand, for the first time in half a century in some cases. Click the images to go to the relevant Amazon page (the usual Amazon type of ad isn’t inserting correctly for some reason).
But wait! There’s more!
Sure, these kits are simple, not terribly accurate, in many ways kinda crummy in their terribly outdated way. But that is kinda what makes them interesting and fun to build. They are *cheap* and you don’t need to worry about a billion parts and photoetched bits and so much effort required that you are assured of giving up a quarter of the way through. Probably good kits to get kids working on.
Hmmm.
The logic here is that as global commerce grinds to a halt due to China’s little bio-surprise, places where warfare and cultural stupidity are *already* leaving people in a precarious nutritional position will only get much, much worse. People as a general rule don’t just lay down and die when times get tough… when they can, they pull up stakes and go where things are better. And where are these people going *today?* War-torn regions of Africa, the Middle East and southern Asia are not going to flood into China, because the Chinese will merrily mow them all down. Same with Russia. But Europe has spent a few generations saying “come on in and get a bunch of free stuff at the indigenous taxpaying populations uncomplaining expense” and has only recently started to understand that this might not have been an unalloyed good thing. And now, as new famines may well loom – or even just the fear of some near-future famine – that shining beacon of free bennies that is Europe might find itself the destination of choice for hundreds of millions of plague-riddled starving hordes.
Good luck with that.
Turns out I have a diagram of the Hiller quad-lift-duct “flying crane” that I posted artwork of a while back. Not much more data than just the diagram, however.
Snerk.
The fact that there are substantial numbers of people who believe this? Just makes it all the funnier.
Published in the German “Der Flieger” magazine in 1967, this diagram depicts a strategic bomber seemingly of the AMSA variety. But the minimal text accompanying the diagram gives no indication *who* designed it. Boeing? Lockheed? Tupolev? Volkswagen? If anyone recognizes it, I’d appreciate any info.
Here’s a ponderable: apart from theatrical uses, what practical function can a set of “finger extensions” such as these be put to? They look cool, but I suspect that, at least as built, they’re neither strong nor rugged. But made from titanium alloy and carbon fiber, maybe they could be really quite something. But *what?*
