Comics MATTER w/Ya Boi Zack on YouTube asked this:
If AI Art isn’t “real” art then explain THIS.
Jan 132023
Jan 132023
There is, I think, a lot of wishful thinking here, but interesting speculation nonetheless.
The benefits of Russia’s coming disintegration
The author believes that the Russian Federation will collapse into dozens of independent states, Russia itself will become a minor rump state, and the world will be a happier, safer, more western place, with China somehow also reduced in power.
Ummm. Nice dream, I suppose, but wounded animals are bad enough; wounded *psychotic* animals with nukes are kind of a special sort of problem.
Also: the photo in the article shows part of a painting that appears to depict Satan setting Putin on fire. It’s not described in the article, but this is a mural painted at the St. Josaphat Church in Chervonograd city, Ukraine in 2017. This is well to the west of Ukraine, so it’s probably still standing. Looks a lot like a Jon McNaughton painting.
Jan 132023
In general you want your opponent to be dumber and less capable than you. In matters of war and serious geopolitics, you want them to believe things that just ain’t so, to be generally gullible. But at a certain point, those who oppose you can start to believe in false stories that are *so* dumb – the “wage gap,” “white supremacy,” ‘trans women are women,” and so on – that they begin to pose an all new kind of threat.
And so… to Russia:
Russia Is Afraid of Western Psychic Attacks
Psychic powers and the supernatural are, on their own, wholly unthreatening. Things that don’t exist can’t hurt you… the Kremlin can have their psychic warrior beam Bozo Rays at me all day long, won’t harm me a bit. But such things *aren’t* on their own. A belief in nonsense could end up with Putin, say, believing a “psychic” who tells him that the United States just launched a thousand cloaked warheads at Moscow, each filled with a Sith lord dolphin powered by Mary Kay brand dark matter. Since the Russians don’t have an anti-Sith dolphin defense shield, their only recourse would be to strike back at the US with a full nuclear barrage.
In general I fully support my enemies spending as much of their time and treasure trying to gain the upper hand in psychic warfare. Every ruble spent on Miss Cleoski is a ruble not spent on an AK-47 or a MiG or an ICBM. But at some point they go a little too far. Hell, imagine if the Russian leadership began to believe that their psychics were capable of stopping a full US nuclear strike on Russia. That might incentivize a Russian first strike.
Jan 122023
Big bomb laid to rest
An article by Sandia Labs discussing the disposition of an old, old, OLD Mk 17 nuclear bomb “trainer.” Obviously this isn’t, never was, an actual thermonuclear weapon, but a training device; as such, it doubtless included a lot of the same parts as the actual bomb.
The Mk 17 was a giant of a bomb, deliverable only by the B-36; with a yield of about 15 megatons, it was delivered in 1954, withdrawn from service in 1957. Consequently, this thing is pushing seventy years in age. The article states that it was “transported to Kirtland Air Force Base for its end-of-lifecycle dismantlement and disposition.” One *hopes* that means it’ll be lovingly restored and sent to a good museum for display. One fears it means it’ll be disassembled and scrapped. That *seems* to be its fate based on the vague descriptions of what’ll happen to it.
Jan 112023
Second batch of classified Biden docs found at new location: report
Both batches were discovered *before* the mid term elections. The media said nothing. The FBI raided nobody.
Jan 112023
On the one hand, earlier today the FAA ordered a “ground stop” to all domestic flights, basically shutting down the aviation economy:
Buttigieg responds to latest transportation crisis as he faces continued criticism
On the other hand, eggs are becoming a luxury good, unavailable to regular folks.
Egg Shortage: What’s Behind Soaring Prices – and When Will They Go Back Down?
In the Midwest, a dozen large eggs cost an average of $5.17 last week, compared with roughly $1.50 in January 2022 and 94 cents in 2021. …In California last week, the average price for a dozen eggs reached $7.37, according to the USDA’s Egg Market Overview report.
This is apparently due to a bird flu wiping out chicken in industrial quantities.
Jan 112023
Jan 112023
If it works, if it’s affordable, and if it makes us that much less reliant upon the crappier parts of the world… hey, great, soy-infused tires.
Goodyear’s New Tire Is Made From Soybean Oil, Rice Husks And Pine Resin
At CES 2023, the company revealed a tire in which 90 percent of its components are materials that come from sustainable sources. Goodyear says there are 17 sustainable ingredients that include things like recycled polyester and plant-based components like soybean oil, rice husk waste, and “bio-renewable” pine tree resin. It also uses steel with “high recycled content” and “ISCC certified mass balance polymers from bio- and bio-circular feedstock.”
There have been concerns about the availability of natural rubber (i.e. from rubber trees on rubber plantations in places like south east Asia) due to the usual concerns: climate change, China, diseases, etc. So if a perfectly cromulent replacement for natural rubber can be had from stuff that can be grown in the US… yahoo. For too long has the wealth of the modern world poured into other lands.
Things don’t look great for Virgin Orbit
AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., news, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ
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Jan 102023
Virgin Orbit is Richard Bransons space launch company. Their launch system, LauncherOne, uses a 747 to haul a more or less conventional expendable rocket into the air for launch to orbit. yesterday they flew a launch attempt, the first orbital launch attempt from the UK. Note “attempt.” It got close, but something went wring and the vehicle didn’t attain orbit. That’s never a good thing, but things apparently weren’t good at the company before then.
Even before Monday’s launch failure, Virgin Orbit’s finances were dismal
The math seems weird:
Independent estimates suggest that, over that time, Virgin Orbit spent as much as $1 billion to develop and test its LauncherOne rocket and air-launch system. The company made its first successful launch in January 2021 and has averaged one mission every six months since then.
An obvious question is this: With such high development costs and a low cadence for a rocket that sells for $12 million per launch, how can Virgin Orbit be financially sustainable?
How indeed. $12M per launch would require 83 launches to make a $Billion, and that’s forty years at the current rate. And $12M is the selling price of the mission, not the profit.
Jan 102023
The President of the United States has at least one absolute power: the power to declassify secret documents. There is some discussion about the process, but is *seems* that all he needs to do is say “this document is declassified,” and that’s that.
The Vice President does *not* have that power.
@conor902
3 hours ago