History, Politics And Current Affairs

Once a day. Place a pillow or soft cushion on the floor. Stand, with your feet in line fore aft, without touching anything. Hold that for 30 seconds while looking at something fixed in front of you. Repeat with your feet switched round. Evening of the second day of this my knees were expressing seve...

I'm very sorry to hear that my friend. Best wishes to all.

Mordor (the south east) is a closed book to me for this holiday. We are off to Dartmoor in a week via Bath for two weeks of flinging ashes about and big family reunion, and hopefully lots of walking, and then OUR holiday starts, where we flee to Bamburgh to see what they've done to it, and we mess a...

Off to Shrewsbury today, nice pub at Cardington on the way, and then to the wildwoods of North Wales to see my sister's new studio and catch up with family. We spent most of yesterday jetlagging around Bewdley, activities somewhat curtailed because most things are no cash and I'd forgotten my card.

On the plane over here I reread LOTR 1. The foreword was interesting, JRRT wrote the scouring of the shire very early on. Obviously it is a lament to the destruction of traditional rural life by industrialisation. So landed at Heathrow, drove out through sluff and out to Henley. Henley's noice. Then...

Should be on the Fiction forum. Nice job, but who is taking the video?

reddit photos of the thruster assermbly on the spaceship vs what they are testing. Also some detailed observations https://www.reddit.com/r/Starliner/comments/1eiggns/boeing_cst100_starliner_crewed_flight_test_cft/#lightbox I'd add that testing a thruster in isolation in an atmosphere will have very...

Is this a one man band/ego exercise? https://www.stavatti.com/aircrafts/sm-47-t-x/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/stavatti-air-force/ https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stavatti-aerospace/people well make that 2 man band https://www.military.com/defensetech/2003/04/02/laser-rifle-design-a-hoax...

I was in the CCF in the 70s, apart from drill and what not to do with a rifle and some familiarity with map and compass work and radio drill (for some of us) I don't think it would have accelerated the training for real Army life.

If you really want to think about the mentality of the Japanese military check out the Cowra POW breakout. Quite astonishing.

Somebody elsewhere pointed out that including automatic undocking on a crewed mission introduces a new FMEA top level risk - accidental initiation of undocking. Byeeee

Couple of new events in the Olympics. Men beating up women, and Pedo plays with balls.

So 5 years back I bought some lovely Meindl boots. Absolutely fantastic. Tried to put them on yesterday. No. Or rather yes but my toes were crammed into the ends and they pressed down on the toe knuckles. I managed a 4 km stroll hoping boot would fit foot or vice versa. Swear words were aired. So to...

I was thinking about the rather un-awesome 100000 simulations in the X post. So my guess is they can't find what is wrong with the thrusters as such, but have monte carloed lots of reentry attempts with individual thrusters randomly failing at what they have determined is a likely failure rate. My g...

Puff piece on solar wind and battery https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-02/demand-for-sunlight-storage-surges-amid-transition-to-solar/104170720 Harsh reality, from opennem https://res.cloudinary.com/engineering-com/image/upload/v1722556625/tips/image_2024-08-02_095658766_ags9ln.png That is to say ...

Good oh, I'll see if that's still available.

On the procurement side, I used to work for a defence equipment supplier. We'd underbid the original contract at say $40 ph, and then the cluey guys who wore suits would suggest upgrades or enhancements to their customers (Navy or whoever), who would agree, and then press Defence to pay for them, ef...

A cross between Killing Eve, Nikita, and The Americans. East German unofficial assassin set as the Berlin Wall comes down. It's German Netflix but there is a dubbed version, although the disparity between the subtitles and the voice track is entertaining. We've only watched one episode so far but it...

" the commercial space outfit has seen death and injuries to personnel" Oh FFS, somebody got killed while in a truck. FUD.

Here' the original. Hmm, that's rather a good take on it.