Simulating Nightmares
In keeping with the chipper and upbeat nature of the last post, one of the Brickmuppet's crack team of Science Babes informs us that the Federation of American Scientists has recently started running simulations of various scenarios involving nuclear exchanges between the USA and China.
This is a sobering document. The scenarios examined would seem to be beyond possibility...until one remembers the events of 1914 and 1939.
A couple of things leap out. Fallout shelters, despite the protests of
the ignorant are a very good thing to have in this sort of situation.
Neutrality does not apply to Tijuana, Quebec, our friends the Bahamians or the Maritimes.
I question the FAS's targeting assumptions, although it cheers me
greatly not to see a big smouldering scab in place of Hampton Roads, I
can't fathom that an area with this many military assets would escape
while they'd waste a missile on Detroit. This dubious supposition may
reflect the fact that China's nuclear deterrent is counter-value, not
counter-force, that is, the Chinese ICBMs target cities rather than US
Missile batteries. Chinese missiles have big 3 or 5 megaton city buster
warheads (assumed to be 4MT in the FAS study).
Ewww...
The FAS study assumes that China has around 20 ICBMs which is the official line, but the Russians credit them with a somewhat larger ICBM force and around 1800 warheads albeit mostly medium range for use against Russia and India and only half on alert. Other estimates go as higher.
The US by contrast can't currently make new nukes and isn't developing any. The FOGBANK fiasco from a few years ago shows what can happen when a technological capability atrophies.
This has implications.
Deterrence rests on the assumption that an attack on the US is national suicide. If the US is attacked by nukes right now it will go full Jacksonian as is our habit when we are REALLY pissed off. The rape of Atlanta or the bombardment of Japan will pale in comparison to what would befall the entity stupid enough to do such a thing. US bombs have much lower yields than other nations but they are all over 300 kilotons and there are about 2000 of them. A society that incited the use of such weapons upon itself would pass into history as completely as the Minoans, the Toltecs or the Carthaginians. This is true for most of the other nuclear nations as well. That's why there haven't been any nuclear attacks since Nagasaki. Note though that as our deterrent decays and/ or is whittled away in arms control treaties the notion that a nation, especially one led by admirers of Mao Tse-Tung might come to the conclusion after ruthless cost benefit studies of omelets versus eggs that any retaliation would be endurable.
The FAS study is science fiction now, it's an exceedingly unlikely set of scenarios. However that may not be the case in a decade or so.
There's also the unpleasant possibility of a nuclear nation in the grip of someone who is utterly bat-scat bonkers and to whom deterrence is of limited value...which brings up a question I've had for a couple of months about the seemingly 'gimp' performance of the North Korean nuclear tests. None have even been as powerful as Little Boy. The biggest was 10 kilotons and a few were only a few hectotons, but it occurs to me that these are all in the ballpark of the weapons built around the now decomissioned W-54 warhead the US developed in the 1960's. Weighing only about 50 pounds its yield could be varied from 200 tons of TNT to one kiloton. It was used in backpack bombs, air to air and air to ground missiles and a perfectly functional but somewhat dubiously conceived atomic bazooka. Impressively, the W-54 warhead was able to give a yield of 6 kilotons as demonstrated in the SOCORRO shot of the Hardtack 2 test series, though tactical applications of the weapons that used it required lower yields.
Because the bazooka only had a range of 2.5 miles so 6 kilotons would be demoralizing to the bazookateers.
I mention this because it is possible that North Korea might not be botching their tests. They might be trying to build something akin to the 50 year old W-54. 50 pounds....suddenly those IRBMs which can (occasionally) put a 200 pound satellite into orbit have a rather different potential. The ability to put 7 or so 1-6 kiloton devices in the general vicinity of a city (I'm certainly not talking about MIRV's ) might be available in a few years. If small weapons are what their developing however, a much more likely threat (assuming that they ARE crazy) might be as backpack nukes delivered to terrorists. Note that Iran and North Korea are cooperating regards rocketry and nukes.
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Why do they think the Chinese are operating on a value-vs.-capacity strategic framework? The Soviets weren't during the Cold War, and American assumptions otherwise resulted in a lot of mis-deployment and strategic malinvestment. I'd hate to think that they're just repeating the mirroring errors of previous generations.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Tue Aug 20 15:44:46 2013 (jwKxK)
As to why ground zero is the administration building at ODU...I have no comment.
Switching to a completely different topic, did you ever get credit for that class that you posted about a while back?
I passed a radiological monitoring class back in the mid-80's, and bought the same, Cold War model radiation detector after 9-11. However, it's not exactly user-friendly. Maybe I should get one of those new-fangled digital models...
Posted by: Siergen at Tue Aug 20 15:52:52 2013 (Ao4Kw)
Sorry to disappoint you, but North Korea is "botching their tests".
They've been trying to run their plutonium breeding cycle too long, to get a larger yield of plutonium out of it.
Which works, but it has the drawback that you get a lot more Pu240 and Pu241 mixed in with your Pu239, and that makes the weapon detonation change.
Those low-yield blasts have been bombs in which the critical mass wasn't assembled fast enough, well enough, to produce full yield. (The technical term is "fizzle".) Excess 240 and 241 in the plutonium is almost certainly the reason why.
Low yield small nukes aren't based on Uranium or Plutonium. They use different isotopes entirely, and North Korea doesn't have the ability to create those kinds of isotopes.
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I should say, that low yield nukes aren't based exclusively on uranium and plutonium. They require a hot neutron source in the package, made of some other element/isotope entirely. North Korea doesn't have the ability to create that other stuff. (It requires a particle accelerator and they don't have one.)
Why do they think the Chinese are operating on a value-vs.-capacity
strategic framework? The Soviets weren't during the Cold War, and
American assumptions otherwise resulted in a lot of mis-deployment and
strategic malinvestment. I'd hate to think that they're just repeating
the mirroring errors of previous generations.
I think it has to do with their assumed small number of ICBMS . The idea is they cant make a meaningful dent in the us nuclear force but can eliminate 20 cities which would devastate the country for years.
I'm pretty sure that that early on the USSR actually DID focus on a countervalue strategy for similar reasons, however as their accuracy and number of missiles increased dramatically they eventually switched to both....as you point out this was not appreciated at the time.
Pete may some thoughts on that
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Aug 20 22:05:09 2013 (F7DdT)
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Assuming the upper left corner of that map is Seattle, it doesn't look so good for me....
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Aug 21 03:15:10 2013 (TJ7ih)
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I never knew anything about strategic studies or decision-making, sorry.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed Aug 21 03:17:50 2013 (l231P)
"As this year will mark Chairman Mao's 120th birthday, we must turn
Chairman Mao's old residence into a base for patriotism and
revolutionary education, in particular to make it play a greater role in
the education of the younger generation,"
Nothing like invoking the greatest mass murderer in history for moral authority. This hardline 'get back to the commie roots' thing seems to be something of a pattern.
On top of that, it turns out that Xi Jinping was in charge of the whole 'poke Japan with a stick' strategy which was initiated by his office and since he took the presidency, the actions regarding the Senkakus have been tightly controlled by him directly. That article also offhandedly mentions this alarming incident from January which got very little if any press here in the states...
Two Jian-10 fighters took off from an air base outside Shanghai and
followed a U.S. airborne warning and control aircraft, which carries a
surveillance system for tracking other planes, north of the Senkaku
Islands at a close distance, the sources said.
Two F-15 fighters of the Air Self-Defense Force then took off to counter the Chinese move, the sources said.
The United States has been deploying airborne warning and
control aircraft since mid-January following China’s violation of
Japanese airspace near the islands in December.
According to the Defense Ministry, SDF fighters were
scrambled against Chinese aircraft as many as 91 times between October
and December.
(Emphasis mine.)
Nintey one times in three months.
Plus.. back in January, the Chinese sent out a bunch of fighters to buz a US scout plane...(disturbingly similar to what happened in the Hainan incident) and the Japanese responded by sending in the Calvary.
I had no idea there were military air incursions of Japanese airspace let alone that they were that frequent on top of the naval incursions. This is Cold War stuff. Good grief! It's no wonder the Japanese are jumpy.
All of this has been so blatant that after a recent similar incident even the highly partisan U.S. Senate issued a rare UNANIMOUS condemnation of china's actions. Note that this received little fanfare here here but is big news in Asia. China's response was to send 4 Coast Guard ships to the Senkakus.
While this situation still seems unlikely to immediately go pear shaped it is a hell of a lot more serious than is generally supposed.
Under international law all resources within 250 miles of a nations shore belong to that country so these little rocks are far more important than one would think. Especially since they're smack blab in the middle of Japan's fishing waters and a natural gas field.
RWBY is Now on Crunchyroll
There's not much to add except that having watched it again, Crunchyroll can handle the load in the exact same way that that RoosterTeeth's server's can't. (I tried to show it to a friend last night and it was all out of synch). It stays in sych at high rez too.
Haganai Season 1
This is probably better known to most fans as Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai which is abbreviated as Haganai because....kanji.
In any event due to the fact that "I Don't Have Many Friends" was thought to have insufficient market appeal, Haganai is the title Funimation chose to release the DVD under.
This is not a show I would ordinarily watch. It screams harem show...and it's scream is not entirely misleading. However, last night, a friend of mine insisted that we watch it and suddenly it was 3AM and all 13 episodes were over....and I had finally found out where this .gif came from..
Haganai revolves around the misadventures of a high school club that is formed for the stated purpose of helping people with poor social skills. Of course this results in a group of awkward misfits in an enclosed space, interacting with each other thereby creating a critical mass of social ineptitude. Hilarity ensues.
This show is a complete and utter train wreck but I laughed my ass off. While most of these characters are deeply flawed, they are flawed in fairly interesting ways. Furthermore most have at least some redeeming characteristics and a surprising bit of depth.
One thing that is surprising is how the show inverts a couple of tropes. One of the characters is the sort of Haruhi/Tsundere type character the audience is generally expected to root for and another is the quintessential 'rich bitch' everyone loves to hate. However, Yozura is such an unlikeable, mean and manipulative character that, for me at least, she comes off as just plain loathsome. She has been completely consumed, by her bitterness and in particular her hatred of Sena...
I...don't understand all that but I think I should apologize to the Netherlands.
....now she can be funny, but she is actually the shows antagonist/villain. At one point they are talking about bullying and she makes a case for the bullies point of view...because she's not a good person.
By contrast, Sena, the rich blonde with everything has all sorts of unlikeable traits, but she is also sincere and there actually seems to be a decent person there. The intense loneliness and vague paranoia of someone who fears that anyone being nice to her is up to something is well conveyed....and they manage to pull this off and be funny.
Funimation actually put out for a dub which in this case is rather above average. Well written and well acted, the stacatto dialog and superb pacing very effectively brings to life a group of not always likeable but generally interesting characters.....
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I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to hate Yozora as much as most American viewers have reportedly done. But yeah, she's hard to love. Were we ever authoritatively told what sex Yukimura actually was? It was played pretty ambiguously throughout the first series. I dunno, if the answer to that is a spoiler for the second series, we'll see when that gets released - I'm pretty much in a wait-for-the-physical-media-release place these days.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Sat Aug 17 21:02:42 2013 (0COXz)
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I agree. I'm not sure if she's a character type that jumped the shark in writing or if she's an intentional inversion.
Supporting your idea we have
the revelation...quite early on... that she's Koddaka's childhood friend...tand at the end of the series that all this was an elaborate scheme to to reunite with him that might have worked too if THaTBItCHWHOsHEHaETSHaddNTBaRGEDinRIgHTTHEN... thus 'justifying' her near psychotic hatred of Sena.
Additionally, she is an extreme tsundere, a 'type' that is generally the lead in these sorts of shows and generally comes out on top. The plucky normal girl who comes out on top and vanquishes her more superficially desirable/exotic/foreign rival is a cultural trope as well. Someone who only watched the first few episodes might consider her the underdog
Sena is utterly full of herself and does have a princess complex, though she gets better. Being mixed race is a big strike against her in Japanese shows...they almost NEVER get the guy.
On the other side of the coin the male lead is mixed race. We have the utter sadistic cruelty Yozura exhibits when abusing Sena which is really over the top. The books she's reading may be intended to send a message too. Machiavelli doesn't have the negative connotations in the rest of the world he does in the US, but I'm pretty sure DeSade does. Sena's problem regards trust is well explored in a way Yozura's need to control everything is not. Yozura prooves herself to be completely untrustworthy and manipulative in the course of the show...she keeps one promise, alluded to in the spoiler, but that is for her gain.
Yomi Hirasaka is the authors name, which sounds like a woman and that difference in perspective might make all the difference. Mocking and tormenting someone like Sena might seem righteous in and of itself. The fact that Sena could ever BE sympathetic or considered anything more than an object to rage against might only have been realized beleatedly.
Hell, if we want to to pass out the hateorade...at the extreme end of the scale Yozora could be a Mary Sue character, living out a sadists dream of
utter control of her peers and vengeance upon those she resents...all the while getting a noble and competent blond boy with a badass rep and who has already demonstrated he can take care of his sister. ......all this in a
manga marketed as male wish fulfillment which which could be for her a power
trip in itself.
...
...
I just typed that paragraph.
...
...
I myself have no issues at all...whatsoever...honest.
...
...
Whatever the authors intent...I laughed.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Aug 17 22:21:47 2013 (F7DdT)
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Regards Yukimura.: I honestly dunno...That is his story...and I am sticking to it.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Aug 17 22:29:28 2013 (F7DdT)
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Sena is better done in the game, too. But then the Rika path wins outright. You can find the sequences on Youtube. BTW, the game music was quite amazing.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Aug 18 00:13:41 2013 (RqRa5)
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I note that my write up glosses over how awesome Rika is. She's really well written, and Alexis Tipton does a really good job portraying her in the dub. (The reading of the mecha manga was...sublime).
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Aug 18 00:40:25 2013 (F7DdT)
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Dutch Wife is a synonym for an Inflatable woman. So basically the insult is that she's a walking sex doll.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Aug 18 01:51:50 2013 (TJ7ih)
I just realized that the top cast members are the same as for another show: Guy who looks like a thug, Blonde rich bitch with huge boobs, Jealous brunette who is sadistic and childhood friend of the guy == Ladies versus Butlers.
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Magic!
I went out to route 460, which is a road that is almost perfectly
straight between Windsor and Richmond. This is becausev it was surveyed
by George Washington and is believed to be built on a ley line. In an
old tobacco barn along the side of the road I accumulated a large pile
of ox dung. I then arranged 3 loadstones in an equilateral triangle
around the dung pile with one of the "points" directed at Polaris. I
then stripped naked and cut myself and bled into a quart jar that was
one eighth filled with quicksilver (mercury.) When I had added an
ammount of blood equal to the mercury I weakly staggered over to the
manure pile and put the jar deep within it. With my essence mixed with
mercury in a trilateral magnetic field aligned with Polaris next to a
ley line I danced naked in what moonlight entered the old tobacco barn
for 33 minutes all the while repeating the following chant.
"BahweepGrahnAH..weep..ninnybahn!" After the 33 minutes had passed I
staggered over to the dung pile and removed the jar which now contained a
perfect facsimile of me, except that it was perfectly hairless was red
and silver and 4 inches tall. This is called a 'homunculus' and is useful for odd jobs and tormenting ones enemies as well as curing writers block and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
For this purpose I placed the jar got dressed, drove home and took the homunculus (who I call "Aluishous") out of the jar .
I then placed him at a 45 degree angle to the left of the minitor and...THIS IS CRUCIAL
had him watch as I copied and pasted Pete's comment quickly into
the comment field adding NSFW tags posted it and deleted the previous
post...and voila! I no longer had a rape joke containing the word "penis" in my sidebar!
Disclaimers:
Several steps may not be strictly necessary.
Brickmuppet Blog is not responsible for:
1)mercury poisoning,
2) medical conditions due to blood loss
3) the sort of nasty infections one might get rummaging through ox dung with open wounds.
Dancing naked in the moonlight is not recognized as a first amendment right in Isle of Wight County.
If not disposed of properly Homunculus will turn on you after 7 days.
To dispose of Homunculus send it with $25 dollars to Schenectady Idea Service Schenectady NY. Include SASE if ideas are desired. HAZMAT packing procedures apply.
Note that Homunculus contains 10% of ones immortal soul.
The almighty may forfeit his option on the remaining 90%. I repeated this procedure shortly after posting this comment to correct a typo.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Aug 19 14:32:17 2013 (F7DdT)
...but she would. She's in it. By the way, what DOES she see in that guy?
The latest installment of RWBY is only four minutes long. Well acted and nicely paced with even better music than previous episodes it...well it ends after four minutes which SUCKS cause I've gotta wait a whole WEEK to see what happens!
It's a cute show, plus it's always nice to see people who genuinely enjoy their work.
It Strikes Me
...that while this banner does make for admirable honesty on their part, such a high visibility release of this information is potentially counterproductive from a marketing standpoint.
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Aug 15 05:29:10 2013 (TJ7ih)
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Shut-ins with psychiatric issues, either agoraphobia, social anxiety, schizophrenia, or some charming blend thereof. Probably also borderline personality disorder in a lot of cases. Hikikomori is a well-publicized aspect of Japan's ongoing social collapse, in public perception if not necessarily in fact, a large fragment of Japanese youth are going full-ama-no-Iwato, hiding in their family homes.
I haven't heard much about hikikomori recently, dunno if that means that the social panic about it has passed, or that people just got bored by reading about them. I guess they've passed on to worrying about foreign affairs and the new nationalism?
Posted by: Mitch H. at Thu Aug 15 08:36:16 2013 (jwKxK)
The stereotype now also includes them spending pretty much every waking minute online.
Himawari in Vividred Connection is initially presented as a fairly typical hikkikomori. (except that fact that she's a girl, and the stereotype is a young man.)
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By the way, we should be grateful collectively to Japan's Hikkikomori, because a lot of the raws which get posted and eventually subbed for us come from them.
Another View
The other day, Brickmuppet Blog commented upon Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept. This article takes a 180 degree different view of his business model from ours.
UPDATE: Rand Simberg strongly disagrees with the characterization of Musk as a corporatist at least as far as Space-X is concerned. Space-X does seem to be rather different from Tesla in that it's paying it's own way and not getting vast piles of taxpayer money as loans and subsidies plus government mandated payments from his competition. I was probably wrong to not put that venture in the same category as Paypal.
Still...
The huge ammount of political shenanigans he's engaged in to get his Car and solar panel company to float should give one pause. Dr. Simberg's argument is that if the government offered him a dump-truck full of our money it would be a breach of fiduciary duty not to accept it. This is true to an extent, depending on the strings attached, but given that at least 2 of his ventures seem to be quite nonviable economically without the government subsidies one can rationally wonder about whether a mass transit system (a type of venture with a poor history of viability in this country) is not a boondoggle.
As it happens, there are other more compelling reasons not to fly to Gibraltar.
First there's the little matter of the place being afflicted with rampaging apes that, in the words the colony's environment minister...
They've lost their fear of humans and consider them a rich source of food.!!
I may have added some exclamation points.
Well, I see no reason to read any more on that topic but if for some reason you wish to be lulled into a false sense of security by 'context' the full terrifying story is right here.
On a completely unrelated note, next August marks 100 years since some smacktalk, an ill timed gunshot and a complete breakdown of common sense got out of hand and accidentally thrust the world into an orgy of auto-cannibalism from which the west has never recovered.
What I Learned this Evening on Crunchyroll
It's the school festival episode of Stella[REDACTED]Club C Cubed and I learned all sorts of stuff today.
The survival club is out of money. They're going to be hard pressed to pay the entry fee to get into a much anticipated '24 hour tournament'. They decide to go for broke and try to raise enough money at the festival.
I learned a new Japanese word.
In Japan a commercial shooting stall with electric target retriever is called a "massine'.
It may SOUND like they're saying 'machine' but it's a brand new and distinct word meaning 'shooting stall with electric target retriever'. I know this because the subtitle-ers spell it that way. Every. Single. Time.
See? They learned something too.
I have serious doubts that 'learning' that has made me any wiser but I learned some other things as well. For those that have seen the episode, here's what I learned... more...
In my defense I am distracted by my pondering of what Extreme Opera is. After seeing Dasichi's skillset, I keep having visions of them running through the forest weilding paintball guns with Daisichi portaying Brunhilde while Sigfried, portrayed by Aiara, shouts "Kill da Waaaabit!.
I am unable to unsee or unhear that.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Aug 13 14:18:37 2013 (F7DdT)
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Maybe you can use the word "massine" in your next Japanese class to impress your instructor with your large vocabulary...
Posted by: Siergen at Tue Aug 13 17:05:30 2013 (Ao4Kw)
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Somewhere on Youtube I saw a clip of what I guess is supposed to be a Japanese game show that involved spraying water on some women who were dressed--if you can call it that--only in toilet paper wrapped around their torsoes, so to be fair to Gainax, it's not as if they're making that up out of whole paper.
Posted by: RickC at Tue Aug 13 18:10:13 2013 (WQ6Vb)
Moby FAIL!!
Hah! Saw this on Instapundit. It is rich.
It seems that ABC sent a bunch of actors to incite anti-gay asshattery at a blue collar diner in Texas. For comparison they did the same at an upscale restaurant in NYC....because...'Journalism' means that narratives must be reinforced.
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I notice they kept the charade up until they found someone who agreed with the "waitress."
I actually work just up the street from that restaurant and used to eat there at lunch all the time. I'm a little surprised they went along with this. They must have done this outside peak hours, and kept the regular staff away, because that place is always packed at lunchtime and you would never have a problem finding another waitress or management to complain to.
Also, this story must have been filmed quite some time ago, because that location isn't a Norma's any more; it's now the Diner of Dallas. (and, btw, highly recommended if you live or are in the area and like diner food.)
Posted by: RickC at Tue Aug 13 18:40:06 2013 (WQ6Vb)
HYPERLOOP!!...HYPERLOOP!!...HYPERLOOP!!
Elon Musk's much hyped and speculated about design for a transportation system which was unveiled today. The 57 page PDF is here. One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes is on the case trying to digest all that info...(or at least digest a sweet potato).
It turns out that this concept is not the vac-train many people predicted so it doesn't have the same technical issues that people have been bringing up for the last few months. It has completely different technical issues.
I think the notion that right of way issues are no greater than power-lines is wildly optimistic as well as discounting what a legal pain running powerlines can be. The idea of using Inrerstate Medians is a good one that we here at Brickmuppet Blog have long thought to be the only viable right of way option for new rail lines...assuming they could be made economically viable (a BIG assumption). However, keep in mind that attempts to expand a commuter rail system ON EXISTING RAIL LINES here in Hampton Roads faces environmental impact statements and studies that will take up to a decade for some proposed lines. An attempt to install high speed rail tracks next to the existing AMTRAK rail lines is facing a similar issue and delay. The extension of the northeast highspeed rail corridor south is actually an idea which makes good economic sense (unlike most US HSR proposals) but even using existing infrastructures for a well understood technology is taking decades and costing millions before any tracks are even laid. This new tech will give the regulators all sorts of ammunition to mandate all manner of studies. So there is at least one huge political/legal hurdle not addressed.
As to the technical issues, this is a bit out of my comfort zone, but I'm a tad skeptical of the 100% solar power idea (particularly north of the Mason Dixon Line) and maintaining pressure differentials in well traveled tubes measured in megameters looks to be challenging to say the least.
Brian Wang (who tends to be very sanguine regards mass transit in any form) is running the numbers here, here and here. He looks at the costs here.
That little potential asphyxiation issue notwithstanding this is a very interesting proposal and I'd really like to see something like this made viable.
However, the biggest red flag is not technical or legal...it's Elon Musk. This is something that Ace touched on the other day and I think it's valid. With the exception of Pay-Pal, all of Musk's business ventures have involved government (via taxpayer) subsidies. Tesla and SolarCity are totally dependent on this sweetheart deals and strong-arming rivals via his patrons in congress and CalGov. Even Space-X which is an inspiring and innovative endeavor, exists because it was awarded the space station contract while other less politically connected companies were passed over (perhaps justifiably, perhaps not).
We here at Brickmuppet Blog would dearly like for this to work... But given Musk's past business models the thing this most reminds us of is.....
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At least in this part of the country, interstate medians are largely wetlands, and trying to build in them would cause the enviroweenie law-scorpions to strike until they break the stinger off in the proposal.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Tue Aug 13 10:52:21 2013 (jwKxK)
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There is at least one other company that's got a contract to deliver to ISS, but they're probably another year from launch. Orbital Science, at orbital.com.
That doesn't detract from your point about Musk.
Posted by: RickC at Tue Aug 13 18:49:07 2013 (WQ6Vb)
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First Antares launch with Cignus to ISS is slated NET Sept. 15, 2013. So I would say that Orbital are "probably" less than another year from launch. This will be the last COTS flight. However, the Orbital CRS delivery is planned to commece with a December flight, which is still significanly less than a year from now.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed Aug 14 19:19:34 2013 (RqRa5)
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By the way, I'm wondering just who the "other less politically connected companies" might be. Does Ace even know that ATK tendered an entry too? Or perhaps he liked George French wasting 168 million dollars?
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed Aug 14 19:25:22 2013 (RqRa5)
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T-Space was the big one that comes to mind. IIRC Space-X got a big infusion of government cash about the same time Tesla did. Whether or not this pushed them ahead of their competition is debatable. Space-X already had some successes. However Musk's other post-Paypal outfits certainly exist because of government largess.
Don't get me wrong I really like what Space-X has done and am not nearly as down on them as this fellow is.
In fact I think including Space-X in this post was a bit ill-conceived on my part.
I confess I read ACE's post but not he article he linked...which focuses a bit too much on Space-X and in fact is written by a fellow with connections to ATK. (See my later post)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Aug 15 16:36:53 2013 (F7DdT)
We Are SO Down With This!
It looks like Russia is trying to popularize tankery.
Now that's a headline that cries out to be double checked so I did and well.... Sure enough.
Russia is challenging the US to compete in a "Tank Biathalon".
"In the tank biathlon, every tank runs almost 20 kilometres at a maximum
possible speed, while firing from all weapons the targets, which are
rising in different directions and distances. On the course, a tank has
to pass repeatedly a ford, fences, a rut bridge, high-speed sections and
overtaking passages. At all the times, the crew remains constantly in
the firing position."
Note that Germany and Italy have already agreed to attend.
No word on the Japanese.
Of course this being Europe I suspect that the few US civilian tank paintball teams will not be able to participate. (this is a rather different set of rules anyway). BUT THIS IS THE FIRST STEP TO HAVING HIGH SCHOOL TANK TEAMS!
It's also a neat and a decent (if bizarre) gesture given the current diplomatic 'issues'. more...
2
I watched the first run, after being reminded about it by people on Russian military forums. Or, more precisely, by the overflowing rage. The crews missed way too many shots in fairly benign conditions. The weather was good, they shot from a stop... and yet... Out of 4 guided shell shots, only 1 hit the target. Ironically, shooting with regular ammo worked better. Nonetheless, some crews managed to miss all allowed shots (4 or 6 loads), hitting the same place. Forumers took it as poor work of commander, who should've helped the shooter to correct for offset sighting.
There was a lot of other hilarity, too. Apparently crews were pulled from each of military districts. They were supposed to be best at their job, but they had to use unfamiliar equipment and teamwork was limping. In some cases, they were taken off different tanks, although in an odd reversal the best driver was just the guy who had to switch from T-80 to T-72 for the competition. He was much faster than the competition, but made a mistake at the narrow bridge, perhaps because he wasn't used to a different position in T-72. In a funnier case, crews forgot to close hatches before fording and received a shower of muddy water.
Sergei Shoygu, current Minister of Defence, watched the proceedings and apparently was displeased.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed Sep 18 00:21:46 2013 (RqRa5)
Nerve Gas at JFK?
I just blundered into this story, There's nothing on Drudge as I type this so It may be nothing...it may be breaking.
A Postal Service mail sorting facility
at New York's JFK International Airport has been quarantined today
after a suspicious package tested positive for VX nerve gas.
Two
Customs agents were sicked Sunday morning after inhaling the strange
odor coming from the package, which unconfirmed reports indicate was
shipped to the United States from China.
That from this Daily Mail article. I'm quite doubtful the Chicoms are sending us nerve gas. If it IS a terror attack it could just as easily been sent from LA or Savannah.
What's in a Name?
As part of her general policy of displaying awesomeness in the comments, Suburban Banshee points out that the name of the new Japanese 'destroyer' has great cultural significance, approaching that of Ise or Yamato.
Interestingly, in stark contrast to ships named Yamato, the Izumo's naval namesake was one of the longest serving and most storied
Japanese ships ever.
Built in 1898 in England Izumo was an armored cruiser armed with 4x8 inch and 14x6 inch guns. An off the shelf export design that Armstrong/ Elswick developed for developing nations navies, Izumo outlived most of her half sisters by decades.
She was the flagship
of the
cruiser force and very heavily engaged in the Russo-Japanese War, leading the raid on Vladivostok, participating in the hunt for the Russian corsair squadron, and seeing action at the pivotal battles of Ulsan and Tsushima. After the war the
ship also did all manner of diplomatic missions and saw action in the
Mexican civil war (rescuing Japanese nationals). During WW1 the ship
served in the Pacific, Indian ocean and also was flagship of the Japanese
force in the Mediterranean. Izumo oversaw the internment of the High Seas
fleet, and finally escorted the war prize U-boats to Japan.
In the
interwar years she did show the flag operations as a training ship.
During the Sino Japanese war the old ship was assigned as the flagship
of the naval contingent, served as a shore bombardment vessel and during
the naval battle of Shanghai sank a Chinese warship and shot down a
warplane.
During WW2 she captured USS Wake and sank HMS Peterel. After that, the old ship served as a training and coast defense ship until sunk at Kure
in 1945 by USN planes launched fro.....
Wait.
Back up. DDH 183's namesake was the flagship during.....Oh.
Oh my.
Messages indeed.
UPDATE:Oh never mind...Teh Banshee had already said all that in an earlier comment.
Time to Give A Shout-Out to IndieGo-Go
Recently we discussed the potential KickStarter has for shaking things up and bypassing normal gatekeepers and FTC issues.
The project, to create bio-luminescent plants, received $484,013 of a $65,000 goal by the time funding closed and was going swimmingly until it attracted the ire of some...I dunno...luddites or something who, on May 31, started an online petition to get Kickstarter to block the project. Kickstarter knuckled under on July 1.
This is bigger than depriving the projects $40.00 backers of their glowing leeks...this is an ex post facto decision breaching a contracts in response to an internet petition.
Which brings us to Indiegogo which is another outfit with a similar buisness model that few people had heard of before Kickstarter decided to spurn the faint green light of and embrace the darkness of anti GM hysteria....and break contracts.
So lets hear it for Indiegogo...at least at the moment they don't seem to be opposed in principal to biotech startups.
...and all that that implies.
Kickstarter does good within what appear to be self imposed limits. Beyond those limits it's good to know that there is competition.
Well, The Thought Was There
Bill Whittle, whose videos I link to frequently, does a very interesting podcast called The Stratosphere Lounge in which he takes questions and holds forth on a wide range of eclectic topics ranging from film to space travel to politics to history. He builds his shows around questions submitted via Facebook in a brief window before the podcast.
Well this weeks show included a question from a viewer about anime. Mr. Whittle expounded for a few minutes on why anime is not his cup of tea. This disquisition however, quickly dovetailed into glowing praise for someone who does not share his opinion on the medium. According to Mr Whittle, someone named 'Steven Den Beste' is brilliant, insightful, inspiring and ALWAYS RIGHT. Mr. Whittle spent several minutes talking about how important Mr. Den Beste's USS Clueless was in the early days of the blogosphere and what a joy it is to read the editorials Steven still occasionally does. After this genuinely heartfelt tribute, Whittle directed his anime attuned listeners to Mr. Den Beste's "Anime Manga...HENTAI..That's the word I'm looking for.. Hentai blog Chizumatic"
....because Steven Den Beste is just the cat's meow and if you're into that hentai stuff Chizumatic is where to find it!
While Mr. Whittle did mention as an aside that he wasn't entirely clear on the meanings of Manga, Anime & Hentai, I suspect that Steven's incoming search terms will be amusing for a bit.
UPDATE: Just to clarify: Hentai is pr0n. Chizumatic is not a hentai blog. The caption is in jest..
1
Heh, I wonder if SDB will have anything to say about the acknowledgement of his hentai blog...
Posted by: Siergen at Sat Aug 10 16:24:03 2013 (Ao4Kw)
2
The Stratosphere Lounge is one of the few things that might entice me to set up enough shell stuff to create a Facebook account.
I can't remember where I went first when I started following blogs, but Eject^3 was a big one early on. It's a shame what it has turned into through neglect. (Tens of thousands of SEO "comments")
Posted by: Mauser at Sat Aug 10 19:34:23 2013 (TJ7ih)
"Lawyers are Trained in Theatrics, Illusion and Magic." WHO KNEW!?
I had no idea that by not pursuing a law degree I was condemning myself to mugglehood.
Obviously a Lawyer.
Allow me to explain.
We have just been directly and indirectly made aware of individuals who really really does not like this silly "jury system" that stands in the way of their preferred justice. Popehat discusses a judge who recently berated a jury for doing the unthinkable and finding someone innocent. He also links to this execrable piece (Warning the "Z Word" is used) that seems to contend in complete seriousness that lawyers use sorcery to muddle the minds of foolish jurors. The post title is an actual quote from the piece. It gets stranger from there.
Unusually, I urge you not to read the whole thing. It's quite incohate and if you fail your saving throw you'll lose 1D6 SAN. Read the annotated version instead.
There does seem to be a growing feeling in the country that the purpose of a jury is to convict. Period.
With that in mind I'll link to this...which needs to be linked to periodically by everyone with access to something corresponding to our 5th amendment. It's actual footage of a Defence Against the Dark Arts class at Regent University. Do watch the whole thing. It's 48 minutes long...but it is vitally important and will cost you no SAN.
"Be sure to use your spellchecking quills"
* Young lady with broom is Shiny Chariot from Little Witch Acadamieas. Her actual status with the bar association is unclear.
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!