1 ...an angry young loser of a man who lived with his mother.
At the risk of sounding flippant, I'll point out that that one phrase neatly describes most of the members of the now-moribund Occupy movement.

On a more serious note, the parallels between then and now frighten me.  If anything, things are worse now.  Now, we have more nations bumbling around the world stage, acting just as foolishly and with just as much belligerency, and armed with weapons that make even the deadliest weapons of WWI look like toys.  Also consider the various Islamist terror groups, who are playing a similar role to the Black Hands, except that (a) they have proven themselves to be more motivated, better organized, and much more brutal, and (b) they have (or have improvised) weapons that are far more devastating than the crude bombs and pocket pistols the Serbian radicals had, and may yet gain access to weapons that are even more destructive.  (As a small aside, also consider that many Western nations, the United States included, have bred their own potential Black Hands; the above-mentioned Occupy movement, The Traitor Formerly Known As Bradley Manning, and recent British and Australian volunteers for international jihad are the bellwethers of this.)

2

There are ways in which things are far better now. For one thing, we don't have the row-of-dominoes alliances set up which led to a diplomatic cascading failure.

3 This is the first I've heard of the Archduke's policies. It sounds like if he had survived, things would be even better than we imagine things would be simply if the war hadn't happened.

4 Nuclear weapons really did change everything. In World War 1, the main fear of countries was that they would delay mobilization, their enemies would mobilize, and they would lose the war before they could properly form up their levies; this is essentially what happened in the latter wars of the 1800s, where Prussia won several decisive encounters through superior organization. Alsace-Lorraine was obtained that way in the first place, right?

Nowadays, the need to have your civilians drafted and mobilized is next to nil, and the rewards to be run through a devastating first strike are quite a bit smaller. No civilian militia or freshly-drafted troops could stand against a professional Western army (and, to be blunt, none of the other professional Western armies dare stand against the US; even the Brits and the French would be little but speed bumps). On the other hand, having experienced WW1, the Western countries are very hesitant to be the first one to pull the trigger. Even Hitler didn't resort to invading countries outright, without a buildup of public opinion and well-crafted justifications. (Of course Pete would probably say "I can think of one example!" ;p)

The biggest issue regarding world peace is that there was previously a system where the powerful Western countries demanded that the leadership of other countries take responsibility for the actions of their countrymen, and happily decapitated those who did not; the idea that a country would be considered "sovereign" but not fully under control of all its territory was silly. Now we've got a series of countries who can claim sovereignty within their borders without actually having control of the population within those borders; the penalty for toleration of such shamelessness has not been fully paid.

That said, the REALLY scary parallel isn't with the start of WW1, but the US's chosen tactics in WW2. We have previously denounced entire areas of warfare, such as the bombardment of cities or the use of unrestricted submarine warfare, as barbaric and completely incompatible with the behavior of a modern society; yet, when pressed, we embraced those strategies thoroughly and to the massive detriment of our foes. Should the new asymmetrical strategy of the employment of non-governmental combatants prove to be a true threat to the US, we would likely embrace that strategy as well. And how well would we do, with our acceptance of military necessity, our widespread gun culture and gun ownership, our legions of youth trained from a young age in advanced squad tactics, and our vast wealth coupled with our technology advantages?

(Basically, were it not illegal, could I see the same folks who play Counterstrike or League every night piloting remote killing-drones through the streets of Medina for the glory and lols? Oh yes, oh yes indeed.)

1

He sure came down hard, though not hard enough to seriously damage the airframe, I guess.

My bet is that he was running out of water. Harriers only carry enough water to run in hover mode for 90 seconds, and it looks like he was pushing the limit.

But your point is well taken, too. That thing is a deliberate design and standard deck equipment? Yikes!

2 It would also be handy in case of combat damage.  For conventional warplanes, they erect crash barriers on the runway if they don't think they can land and stop normally.  For Harriers, they have "landing stools"...

3 The stands are used for maintenance on the plane when it is required that the forward landing gear needs to not touch the deck. There are similar mounts for replacing the other landing gear too. It / they are just fancy jack stands.

4 Harriers only carry enough water to run in hover mode for 90 seconds...

Wait, what?  Can you explain, Steven?

5

When they are hovering, there are gizmos that vector thrust from the engine straight down. But the engines don't produce enough thrust normally to hold the jet up. So they overdrive the engines by injecting water.

It's the same principle as water injection in WWII piston engine fighters. The water cools the air flow, which permits more air and more fuel to pass through the jet engine, producing more thrust. But they have to use a lot of water to get that effect, and they don't carry all that much because water is heavy.

It turns out that they carry enough for 90 seconds of hover. (And too bad for Arnold in True Lies.)

6 From here:

The maximum take-off thrust available from the Pegasus engine is limited, particularly at the higher ambient temperatures, by the turbine blade temperature. As this temperature cannot reliably be measured, the operating limits are determined by jet pipe temperature. To enable the engine speed and hence thrust to be increased for take-off, water is sprayed into the combustion chamber and turbine to keep the blade temperature down to an acceptable level.

Water for the injection system is contained in a tank located between the bifurcated section of the rear (hot) exhaust duct. The tank contains up to 500lb (227kg, 50 imperial gallons) of distilled water. Water flow rate for the required turbine temperature reduction is approximately 35gpm (imperial gallons per minute) for a maximum duration of approximately 90 seconds. The quantity of water carried is sufficient for and appropriate to the particular operational role of the aircraft.

7 So it turns out I got the detail wrong, but the overall fact was still right.

8 I've seen Harriers hover at airshows for longer than 90 seconds, so I suspect that limitation is for when the aircraft is fully loaded with ordnance and fuel.

9 Did you actually time it? Subjective evaluations of duration of extraordinary and noteworthy events are notoriously imprecise and tend to be on the high side. (I think the principle was called "All eclipses last five minutes" because subjectively it seems that way even if totality was actually shorter than that.)

10 The numbers seem slightly off, given "A Pint's a Pound the whole world 'round." A Gallon of water is typically 8 lbs. (and a Gallon of Gasoline is typically around 6.  Not sure about Diesel/Jet A).

11 A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter.  :p

Except in the US, Liberia, and February.

12 Pixy, we can't help that the Imperial standards were diddled by Parliamentary souses determined to squeeze four extra fluid ounces into their beer measures, can we?  The old measures continued as they ever were, here in the rebelled provinces.

13 According to The Blaze, a previous attempt to land on a stack of mattresses did not end quite well, after which the stool was constructed.

14 Hah! Thanks for that Pete. I'm surprised it didn't result in a Blaze. Yes, yes I think the Leathernecks are right and the stool is superior.