Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Starship still not understood. Detailed look at SpaceX's Starship - and by detailed I mean detailed. (HT Borepatch)

- From the archives: Hunter S. Thompson on finding you purpose and living a meaningful life. A little wordy but good advice.

- MAHA!

- The X-37B spaceplane lands after helping to pave the way for "maneuver warfare." The X-37B could be the workhorse of the Space Force.

China as Military Threat to US

 

Some people still don't think China is a military threat to the United States. The above video is of China's Unitree company which seems to have blatantly stolen Boston Dynamics robot technology. Imagine all those robots equipped with weapons.

In even bigger news, China recently surprised the US with a hypersonic missile test. This is eye-opening for many reasons. First, our intelligence agencies and our military seemed to have been caught flat footed - not even aware China was close to this capability. Guess they were too busy spying on us and working on their wokeness. Secondly, it shows the awareness of President Trump in forming the Space Force. If the Chinese are weaponizing space we need to be ready. Finally, it really helps emphasize that we need to get our military house in order.  

And we haven't even mentioned China's biological weapons.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Interesting - Space Force's reported role in foiling Iranian missile attack.

-  Abraham Lincoln on living with loss.

- Buddy Hackett's duck joke

- Do the real thing. Excellent advice.

EDIT: Adding this link as well. Forward it to the people you think may be interested in this info.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing  and thought I'd share.

- Jim Al-Khalili - 5 Physics Books that inspired me.

- Moon patrols could be a future reality for Space Force. Sounds cool but one quibble - really not a fan of the term "cislunar."

- Time to treat Broadband like the essential service it is. Totally agree.

- Things I've Learned or Relearned (on the 5-year anniversary of the loss of a son to suicide). Please read this and please note that the number for the Suicide Prevention is 800-273-8255.Help is available.

- ESPN to eliminate 10% of their jobs. The cuts come amid "tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports." Is that another way of saying "Go Woke- Go Broke"? 

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Interesting look at how the Space Force command will be organized.

- This is very disturbing. Communist China is evil.

-  Cornell is opening for in-person classrooms in the fall because the data shows that online classes actually result in higher infection rates. I was saying that since March!

- Nortel was once a huge technology company - then it was hacked by China. I remember when Cisco, Nortel and Lucent were the dominant tech equipment companies. "Don't trust China. China is asshole!"

- Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine cut death rate significantly in COVID-19 patients

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- New poll shows 40% of Americans won't buy Made in China products.

- Coalition of 116 countries back Australia's push for independent Wuhan Virus inquiry

- Unbelievable is right!

- What Shakespeare actually wrote about the plague.

- Space Force, the X-37B, and microwave energy from space satellites

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Not all heroes wear capes. "It's important that we lend a hand and provide them with an enjoyable way to pass the time." Heh heh "lend a hand." On a separate note - what the hell was PornHub doing with 50,000 surgical masks anyway?... US Space Force had it's first official rocket launch yesterday.  An historic event that went almost completely without notice... I've been doing this blog for 16-years now and I don't think I've ever explained that the inspiration for calling these miscellaneous thoughts and observations actually came from the title of my favorite chapter in The Lord of the Rings... In this time of crisis be sure to use both sides of the toilet paper... Babe Ruth caught the Spanish Flu in 1918 - twice! Wonder why the phrase "the grippe" went out of favor? Also note that the Red Sox team doctor did more harm than good. The more things change...

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Heh Heh

- Apple to pay up to $500 million in settlement over battery-related iPhone slowdown.

- Heh Heh - AOC shuts down Ted Cruz by making baking soda volcano

- Japanese James Bond posters. I know art when I see it.

- A step-by-step guide to Beethoven's nine symphonies. A good primer for a Philistine like me. HT Stephen Landry

- Elon Musk on the US Space Force

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- DARPA's hypersonic "Glide Breaker" could blast missile threats out of the sky

- Think I may actually buy this T-shirt

- SpaceX will launch the US Space Force's third new-generation GPS-3 series navigation satellite. Cool but one question from the article - why do bank ATM's need GPS?

- And just like that another 5 minutes of stand-up material for Jim Gaffigan is born.

- The best explanation of Dora the Explorer you'll ever read

- Tom Brady on what the loss of Kobe meant to him and what's really important. Well worth the read.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- US Air Force's X-37B Space Plane lands after record 780-day mystery mission. It's like watching the US Space Force being born in real-time.

- Sometimes I have the humor of a 12-year old boy.

- How to get infected with malware. (HT Stephen Landry)

- NYC secretly exports homeless to Hawaii and other states without telling receiving pols. This program is disturbing enough but equally disturbing is the number of "public servants" in the article who won't or can't account for how the public funds are being spent. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

- Very Cool - Van Gogh's Starry Night reproduced using Hubble Telescope images.

- Baghdadi story reveals divided - and broken - news media.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Heh Heh

- Ask yourself if you would have been among those that helped. I'd like to think that I would have stepped up.

- The world is literally a greener place than it was 20-years ago - led by (surprise) China and India

- Interesting list - 23 emotions people feel but can't explain. Love to be able to add some of these words to my vocabulary.

- Explain to me again why college sports is tax-exempt. If I were President I would tax all revenue from college sports and use those monies for increased funding for community libraries and the GI Bill.

- Looks like the Space Force is going to become a very real thing

- Speaking of space - the science of "STEVE"

Linky Lnks

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Geothermal heat source seems to be melting Antarctica from below.

- Heh Heh

- Lockheed Martin has started building NASA's X-59 experimental supersonic jet. Cool but why is NASA in the jet business? Isn't their purview space? Is this jet to be part of the new Space Force?

- The 70's were such a more sophisticated time

- This is such a good story. Now do a follow-up on the cadet who gave Bush a chest bump upon graduation.

- Heh Heh

- Started with Antarctic ice - let's end with Arctic ice. And for the record I am not a climate change denier. I am just not a fan of bad or incomplete science.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- This is disturbing - America's ghost legions of idle men

- This woman kicks ass (literally)

- Good question

- X-37B Military Space Plane wings past 400 days on latest mystery mission. I'm fascinated by this stuff. Am I too old to sign up for the Space Force?

- Interesting - treating peanut allergies with peanuts

- In other space news - the BepiColumbo mission to Mercury blasted off this week

- Just want Yankees fans to know that the feeling is mutual

Rogue Satellites

Interesting story of how the CEO of Swarm Technologies launched "rogue satellites" - four small satellites called SpaceBees to be exact.  The twist is that the FCC had denied Swarm Technologies permission to launch these satellites but Swarm and their CEO Sara Spangelo did it anyway.

The questions and issues abound.

These SpaceBees are small communications satellites that would create a network allowing Internet connected devices back on Earth to communicate with each other. Among other problems these SpaceBees are too small (10 centimeters x 10 centimeters x 2.8 centimeters) to be tracked back on Earth by the FCC. Swarm argues that if they can track the devices then others including the FCC should be able to as well.

But it is not just the issue of space junk (roughly more than 4,700 defunct satellites and over 29,000 pieces of space debris) littering our orbit. These SpaceBees didn't have permission to be there. What else is up there without permission? Who should control granting permission? How can you disable rogue satellites once in place?

Sounds like we may be getting our Space Force in place just in time. And a Space Fence too!

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Pretty good list of Gangster movies - though I'd say both American Gangster and True Romance belong on the list. Honorable mention to Road to Perdition and though I haven't seen Sexy Beast I did enjoy another under-the-radar Ben Kingsley gangster movie You Kill Me

- Interesting - perhaps a reason to take any Wall Street insiders complaints about China tariffs with a huuuge grain of salt.

- 12 things that Lee Kuan Yew taught me about the world. Very instructive thoughts from the "Warren Buffet of Singapore" via the Farnam Street blog

- Air Force Secretary lays road map to new Space Force

- US credit card fraud down by 75% because of EMV chips. Good! Make sure all of your cards have a chip.

- This is why I won't be buying Ian O'Connor's new book on Bill Belichick. If you want Belichick's story read David Halberstam's Education of a Coach

- So you're saying those 6-foot long CVS receipts gave me diabetes? Knew it!

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

The first mission of the US Space Force should be to occupy the moon (just as foretold in the prophecies)... So woke it hurts (from laughing)... "Estimare" should be be a word for when an estimate goes way over budget and becomes a fiscal nightmare... Who knew? "Soccer" is actually the more authentic word to describe the sport... "If you have everything under control, you're not moving fast enough" - Mario Andretti... The world's poorest people are getting richer faster. "In 1820 94% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. In in 1990 34.8%, and in 2015 just 9.6%." So historically things have never been better... Heh heh...