This is beyond cool! The University of Virginia has put online a computer recreation of ancient Rome!

Go and browse. This is really nicely done.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.

A new Fallout game is coming!

This has been "coming" for 7 years or more, and I thought the whole project  was dead,  but thanks to Shamus I have something to look forward too in video games.

The first 2 Fallout games,  were among the best of the single player RPGs  of there time, and they still have considerable replay value. They had a neat system, interesting world and an optimism that transcended their post apocalyptic setting. They also had consequences....both good and bad for ones actions. Finally, they tended to not leave one feeling particularly "unclean".

 They certainly are keeping the same aesthetic. I'm not really concerned with the "real time vs. turn based" debate, both have perks. I just hope this keeps the same overall feel.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 129 words, total size 1 kb.

Colleen Doran is serious about self publishing....no middleman for her...she nails every aspect of production at the source.

Not pictured:

The cages where she raises the Siberian squirrels she uses for her brushes and  her annual ink harvest of Humbolt squid off Peru.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 45 words, total size 1 kb.

 Via Rand Simberg comes a tale of ...I'm not sure what...but it's kinda nasty.

 It seems that Florida Democrats, ( no doubt still insecure about there inability to properly fill out a ballot )are trying to nix the current arrangement whereby Emergency Weather info is carried uninterrupted by One of Florida's top rated stations....because it's the flagship station of Rush Limbaugh.

The deal with WIOD would ensure that news conferences are broadcast start to finish live from the county Emergency Operations Center in Plantation. Emergency managers became concerned during hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 that radio and television stations preempted their announcements in favor of news out of Miami.

Ken Charles, WIOD's director of AM programming, said Tuesday the station's talk show lineup has no relationship with its news coverage and that the county should focus on the benefits of teaming with the station.

"It's a shame that people would let politics get in the way of saving lives in a hurricane," Charles said.

OK...so lets get this straight....the agreement would preempt their broadcasting in favor of vital, lifesaving weather information. But rather than have Rush off the air while bulletins are going out....these brain trusts  want to kill the agreement rather than deal with  a station that employs  someone they feel is "double plus ungood".

Wow...

Stupid...

...and evil.

Ye Gods.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 227 words, total size 2 kb.

Mr Wizard has died.

HT: Jerry Pournelle

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 11 words, total size 1 kb.

Blogging is likely to be very light in the coming week....I'm still on active duty and am trying to get certified on two different qualifications before the end of the week.

I originally had put a Chun Li pic here, but then I  found this gem. I didn't figure it out immediately....

Retro PC goodness.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.

Water...possibly liquid water...may have been photographed by one of the Mars rovers!
                      

UPDATE:  I've been unable to blog most of this week, but as Stephen Den Beste points out in the comments, this story has been thoroughly debunked by the fact that the "puddles" are at what appears to be a greater than 25 degree angle. See here and here. The stuff may be ice, but it is not liquid water....

unless....
more...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:36 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 124 words, total size 2 kb.

Do not stand too close to the screen. Sit a good distance away from the monitor.
• Avoid playing if you are tired or have not had much sleep.
• Make sure that the room in which you are playing is well lit.
• Rest for at least 10 to 15 minutes per hour while playing a video game.

...or looking below the fold

more...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:53 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 66 words, total size 1 kb.

The Anchoress has a long and lucid post on the frothing anti-Bush hatred...
...on the right.
You knew, by the way, that George W. Bush favored eventual naturalization for illegal immigrants. He said it when he was Governor of Texas. He said it when you elected him in 2000, and again when you voted him in again in 2004. Then, in 2005, you said, “fix the long-standing immigration problem and fix it immediately, perfectly and exactly as we tell you to.” (C’mon, you know that’s what you said!) And when Bush responded, “but I’ve been really thinking about this issue since ‘way before I was president – even back when you weren’t thinking about it – and I disagree with your solution and here is why,” and you cried “betrayal.”


I had some related thoughts here. I have some problems with this president but I am deeply aware of the last two alternatives.  This immigration thing has utterly jumped the shark. 

Republican base is, for the first time, being as nutty and fanatical as the Kossacks. This is single issue idiocy of the sort that pushed Lieberman from the Democratic party.

Ignoring the ill conceived PR of the monomaniacal freakout over immigrants by people the press has been eager to paint as bigots for years, Ignoring the fact that competition is the basis of capitalism, ignoring the hypocrisy of the children of immigrants slamming the doors behind them...Lets look at this politically for a moment....


The fact is that there is particular irony there.

In the 1960's the Democrats, who had put up the immigration quotas in the 20's radically modified them to favor the third world over those from Europe.
The party had been taken over by the radical left at that time and they assumed that the immigrants from that part of the world would be a population of Che's  eager for socialism  and ensuring their rise to power.

Well they got it backwards...
The population of Europe has as high a percentage as we do of the sort of coddled upper middleclass BoBos and rich spoiled trustfunders who like Marx and Engels before them cannot conceive of being independent....the sort of people who have the leisure time and means to become activist lefties.

The populations from the third world have seen socialism....they have lived it and they have learned their lesson...they are coming here to get away from it.

This explains the sudden lack of support from the Dems...who actually killed the bill. Are there exceptions?

Sure...

Is LaRaza real.....yes....so's the fricking KKK last time I checked.

We need to control the border, sure...I'm with you on that... but those of us who favor family values should not be advocating the breakup of families at the whim of govt. bureaucrats....which is what the people who are freaking out over chain migration are advocating.

I'm FOR border enforcement but I'm also for letting these people in. Percentage wise we are nowhere where we were at the turn of the last century when 13 percent or more of the total population was immigrants.

That worked out pretty well for us.

There are concerns, to be sure, getting English taught to these new Americans is right at the top...but the bill these people helped kill had the first proposed requirement for English fluency before citizenship in a very long time.

This tantrum is Jacksonianism at its worst. People who are single issue voters tend not to favor any sort of compromise.....In a republic, politics IS compromise....that's how we avoid death camps.

I'm really deeply ashamed of this whole thing...

...and given the alternative that the self destruction of the Republicans makes all too likely...not a little worried.


Enough of my blather....Anchoress has more here.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:47 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 627 words, total size 5 kb.

Very good CNN piece.

The small wars manual is definitely being used.




Hat Tip: Deans World

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

Political cartoonist John Cox now has a blog.

Hat Tip: Colleen Doran

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

Wow!

Ben Carpenter got the ride of a lifetime when his electric wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semitrailer and was accidentally pushed down a highway for several miles at about 50 mph.

Update: It was a Mack truck....not a Mac truck. Steve Jobs is innocent

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 53 words, total size 1 kb.

Astro has been busy restoring a Kalishnikov.
here, here, here, here and here.

The Result:

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 02:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

...Well, in anime anyway.

I'm super-busy and still on active duty but I do note that for some reason there suddenly seem to be several shows competing for the very narrow demographic of...Ken....

Moonlight Mile:After scaling Mt. Everest, mountain climbing partners Saruwatari Gorou and "Lostman" Jack F. Woodbridge see the ISA Space Station, and each vows to make the trek into outerspace. When Helium 3, a new energy source, is discovered on the moon, NASA forms a new project named "Nexus" to harness that energy for use on earth. This is the story of the two and the paths they take to see their dream become a reality in the quest to harness the next-generation energy source. From ANN.

This show, despite its optimistic tag line, looks (from the credits) to be a quite intense seat of the pants thriller...in fact it looks rather grim (but  still cool)



Hell...near future space tale that has helium 3 mining....damn strait I'm gonna watch it.

Rocket Girls: A private space launch company testing a rocket in the Solomons is having spectacular failures with their newest rocket prototype. They need some manned launches or their investors will bail. They fall back on their previous (successful) model but due to its vastly lower thrust they must cut weight dramatically...Thus a young , very petite Japanese girl....while roaming the Solomon Islands in search of her long lost father is able to get a  part time job...astronaut.


This one looks really cute.

And on an utterly silly note....the secret history of space travel is revealed in...
Oh! Edo Rocket! : A group of fireworks artisans in the late Edo period of Japan,  are thrown into unemployment when the shogun bans fireworks
(this actually happened).
They continue to secretly build and test fireworks in defiance of the law
(this probably happened)
Tamaya Seikichi is determined to build a rocket that can go higher than any has before
(this could have happened)
....While on the lam from authorities he is a approached by a mysterious young lady of dubious hair color...who asks him and his gang of carpenters, carnies and a renegade mathematician to build her a rocket big enough to take her to the moon....
(Golly! I never knew about that!)

This certainly has potential...I mean it sounds like October Sky meets a Samurai Show .....with circus freaks and fireworks!

Thanks to Pulp Junkie and Don for the pointers!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:59 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 406 words, total size 3 kb.

Continuing and elaborating on the thoughts in this earlier post which was banged out under considerable time pressure....

Modern piracy  is a far more serious issue than is generally thought.

                       

 Eagle One is once again discussing this. He has a typically thoughtful post over at Milblogs regards this issue, focusing this time on the current  situation and the captured Danish crew. Read the whole thing is is very well thought out by a guy who was a naval officer longer than I have had whiskers....

...which gives me some pause in mentioning my very minor quibble with this excerpt:

My arguments regarding international law (of which I generally hold a very jaundiced view) and what I suspect are the ROE governing ops off Somalia are not that the rules are right, but rather that if you know you are going "hunting pirates" that the skids should be greased for "hot pursuit" well before you find yourself facing a captured merchant ship with hostages. Lay the diplomatic foundation first or announce ahead of time that which you suggest - that due to Somalia's inability to control its own waters, others will step in as needed. I can see no reason why such a decision should be left a CO to make on the spot. Although, if it was- then I think in this case the CO of Carter Hall made the right call.

Actually, regards piracy (and slavery), the wheels are greased. While "Hot pursuit" is a delicate matter in some instances, as laws are not uniform, slavery and piracy are universally recognized crimes under international law. Pirates and slavers can be (and occasionally are) pursued across borders. Even the UN, with its dubious record, has these two crimes listed in its charter.

His larger point regards planning ahead and getting ROE settled is, of course, quite correct. Additionally, it should be remembered  that "hot pursuit" means that you are pursuing someone and maintaining contact with them....chasing a ship into another nations waters for instance.


The collapse of the European empires, (which for their many faults had made piracy largely a thing of the past) the increase in gun control initiatives worldwide and the whittling down of the surface forces of the nations that traditionally fought pirates, (most notably the UK) have combined to make vast areas of the oceans a Hobbsian mess.

   The increase in piracy is not limited to Africa where in many ways it is a part of the larger war, but is also prevalent anywhere there is a breakdown in governance, the Malacca straits are another area of international concern.

Eagle1 lists the total number of cruisers, destroyers, frigates and patrol boats in the USN inventory, and comes up with.....86..... a rather small number that represents a big problem.

Numbers count and as the expense of  individual units goes up, the numbers affordable go down.

The Aegis ships can control vast stretches of ocean and are superb escorts for the carriers. With Tomahawk missiles they are powerful strike ships in their own right, but for convoy operations and law enforcement inspections  and boardings...which is what antipiracy duty entails, NUMBERS are needed.

The ships have to be present to achieve anything, and 30 or so ships available at any one time (given yard time, and work up) is way too few.

There are other related problems.....the Arleigh Burke class are perfectly capable of dealing with pirates, but to do so is to use a platinum plated sledge hammer to swat a fly. It is not sustainable in the long run to use 800 million dollar ships to deal with men in dhows armed with bazookas....or sharp pointy sticks (though it can lead to grim, 'Darwin Award' moments of humor).

 Additionally, putting warships optimized for high intensity warfare into a low intensity one is not playing to the ships strengths and can make them vulnerable to asymmetric attacks ala' the Cole.

Boardings and inspections could easily put a cruiser or destroyer within the normally limited kill zone of a terrorist vessel armed with explosives or perhaps a torpedo. This would be a tempting target for Al-Quaeda or a similar organization.  Given the high percentage of the current crop of Pirates that are Moslems, the potential for this sort of asymmetric attack on the high seas is very real.

Of course, his holds true for a small patrol vessel too....but in the unfortunate event we utterly loose a patrol vessel like the successful "Storm" class of the Coast Guard and Navy, we loose 35 men and a <25 million dollar asset. Total loss of an Arleigh Burke means an 800 million dollar ship and 380 sailors.

We need something cheap shallow draft and fast with the armament of a Coast Guard cutter that can go into the littorals  and  engage the enemy....back in the day this would have been called a 5th rate, a gunboat, or perhaps a sloop, aviso or, in the late 20th century, a frigate. Today,  power point paladins would probably call it something really gay like "Littoral  Combat Ship"...oh wait.

The LCS is about the size of a  Frigate, and seems to cost upwards of 200 million. One of the two competing designs was recently canceled because of cost overruns. Despite this, its basic armament suite is comparable to a US Coast Guard cutter.

 On the bonus side,  it can be fitted with several systems in a bolt on fashion...most modern ships can.  It is really fast,  the trimaran design (the one that hasn't been canceled yet) has very impressive helicopter facilities and good seakeeping, its huge flex-deck and generally versatile design make it an  interesting interesting and inspired choice for the USN as a replacement for the old Perry Class frigates. In particular it has potential as an ASW platform...something the Navy really needs. This vessel can fulfill a number of second line roles traditionally filled by destroyers and frigates....but as pirate hunting gunboat...it just doesn't seem economical.

 You don't need sophisticated custom designed and manufactured stealthy fixtures...you can have the vessel built to commercial specs...perhaps with icebreaker scale scantlings and shell plating for toughness. You need a very seaworthy ship capable of 25-30 kts....more if you can get it, a boarding party or two, one or 2 boarding/inspection launches , a good towing capacity, and possibly, (if you're feeling particularly decadent) a small helicopter deck.

Fighting Piracy doesn't require ECM, area defense missiles, rafting and silencing of the engines, sophisticated data processing or 50 knot speed all of which are expensive. It doesn't require anything more powerful than a 57mm gun and it could likely get by with a much smaller one.

There is just one problem. In a major war all of those things are vitally necessary(OK...nothing actually requires a 50 kt speed.)

In even a fight with a 3rd rate power, let alone China or Russia, such vessels would die a quick death. For frontline units these expensive items don't just need to be bought, they require training, both for maintenance and proper use. Sonarmen in particular are specialists who's skillset is as much art as science, you can't let this atrophy.

There are other issues...we have few people with naval experience in congress, and many who are looking for any excuse to cut military funding. If we bought, say 35 of the aforementioned "Cyclone/Storm" class patrol boats there are quite a few congresscritters who would count them as full-fledged combatant hulls, either through ignorance or malice. The navy needs more vessels, but they must be capable vessels. It has to escort the carriers, and in a general war provide convoy escorts...it needs those LCS type ships, and it needs something akin to todays Aegis ships...the last thing it needs is to have a bunch of patrol craft counted as frigates on the navy list.


Additionally, the skillset for antipiracy is vastly removed from that of a full on war.It is a paramilitary matter, it involves lots of boardings inspections, getting very close to a potential enemy...a no-no in a war. For example...

One of these  vessels is innocently going about its biddness, (fishing or hauling copra or whatever)...one is full of murderous Arab pirates who are looking to prey on innocents and one is transporting black African slaves to Arabia....note the differences and identify them...answer below the fold.*

Frontline navies can do this for targets of opportunity,but it is uneconomical.

This is gunboat duty, it involves boardings, inspections, law enforcement, good relations with the public, familiarity with commercial vessel operations and, occasionally close quarters combat.

This is a job for the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guards of the US, Japan, India, Italy and a few other nations are trained for just this sort of thing. Because they do search and rescue and disaster relief as well, they are well trained for the hearts and minds operations that this long war requires.



SinceWW2 the Coast Guard has had a requirement for about 100 patrol boats...they have not met that goal since the late 80s and the current fleet is both small and quite long in the tooth.

I've blogged on the small cutter woes before.

Give the Coast Guard 60-100 patrol boats as opposed to the 41 we have now, and an additional tender or 2. This would enable 10 or more patrol boats to be in piratical hotspots and still have enough to do domestic duties with some leeway for surge ops and attrition (indeed we have six 110' cutters in the Persian Gulf now....hunting, amongst other things, pirates)

In a few years, we can...especially if we coordinate with the other competent Coast Guards and smaller navies...take care of this issue.

Given the cutters, the Coast Guard can do so without the navy having to train crews to use ships useless in a full on  war...ships that will tempt congresscritters to commit further whittling away on the navy.



more...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1704 words, total size 13 kb.

Somebody...

Explain this...

...please.

(via the mad commentors of Wonderduck)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:01 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

Which necessitates the obligatory placeholder....

...everybody likes zombies!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 12 words, total size 1 kb.

Colleen Doran's mom just went into surgery....no further details at this time.

Update: Yay!

Thankfully, she's OK, but even the smartest of us can be blindsided by the random encounter table of life. Wow!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 40 words, total size 1 kb.

 Eaglespeak has been doing a sterling job of covering the growing problem of modern Piracy.

 

  Recently the Danish MV Danica White was seized by pirates of Somalia, the USS Carter Hall attempted to engage them but was unable to prevent the capture as she apparently arrived too late. Carter Hall is now monitoring what has become a hostage situation...similar recent events have ended badly.
(BBC sneer quotes notwithstanding)

Eaglespeak is on this like ugly on a moose.

More info on the Somali Pirate situation is available here.

This is the kind of problem that has been caused by the deterioration of both law and order in the "third world" and the deterioration of European navies which traditionally stamped out this sort of thing. Additionally, it is badly exacerbated by gun control initiatives...

For example, in at least one recent incident Somali pirates siezed a ship using homemade cutlasses and sharp pointy sticks....the crew were...of course....unarmed...not even shotguns.

Disarming  crews reduces the potential costs to pirates considerably.  The shrinking numbers of big warships that  the western navies have can't be everywhere at once.

Most of what the US navy has is overkill in this situation, though, the Coast Guard/Navy Cyclone class PCs and ships like Carter Hall are fairly good.

What is really needed is several patrol vessels like the Coast Guards cutters, and indeed the CG has been doing some counter-piracy ops in the Persian gulf and there is often a cutter near the horn of Africa.

Pirates are any navies prey, but the first world Coast Guards are likely better suited to this sort of thing....especially those of the US, Japan, and India. Piracy, though it frequently has ties to the larger war, is a maritime law enforcement matter albeit a paramilitary one. The Island class patrol boats cost less than many Navy Harbor tugs....and if they stumble on a suicide boat, or an innocent looking  vessel with an "inexplicable" missile or torpedo mounted on it, it is far better to lose 24 Coasties and a cheap boat than 400 sailors and an Aegis equipped ship of the line. Even the larger cutters with good endurance are vastly cheaper and more lightly manned than even a frigate or LCS.

Astonishingly....I'm not actually busting on the Navy...the Navy historically has had gunboats and used them well....but the danger of the USN "wasting" hulls on these sorts of 4th rate vessels is that congresscritters will see hulls and tout them as frontline ships....The vessels needed for this would die quick in a general war with, say China....they are warships in name only (except for specialized auxiliary roles).  Better to have a second navy that doesn't count against the Navies totals...and is trained primarily for ops short of war and winning hearts and minds....course a few loaner leathernecks couldn't hurt either.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 476 words, total size 4 kb.

  DNA in Incan chicken bones indicates that Polynesians were present in pre-Columbian South America.

  The late Norwegian anthropologist, adventurer and war hero Thor Heyerdahl  had  theorized  a relationship between  South American culture and Pacific Islanders...Though he apparently got the direction of travel backwards (he thought the flow of people was from east to west , hence Kon Tiki) this does give evidence that his observations were otherwise correct.

Go Thor!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.