Homercles

Guess it’s time to add “Porterhouse’d” to the Surly Lexicon Wall alongside Slorch’d

That was actually a good, even-handed breakdown. Pos rep. What I don’t understand about this is why, in the age of cheap microelectronics, do we not have hotbox detectors on the cars themselves? While the video of the burning bearings is wild, it’s possible it didn’t go by a defect detector during that 20+ mile run before the axle sheered off. Obviously stuff like dragging equipment and car counting needs to be done via trackside equipment, but hotbox should be relatively easy. I’m sure the answer is money

Well it only took a little over six years for them to forget what happened with Tay…the tweet/chat bot that quickly turned into a racist insane person for spending too much time with TTomTerrific And of course this classic:

Do we know what caused the original derailment?

Distinct possibility that all these things are not necessarily China/foreign objects, and hopefully we aren’t shooting down every slow moving aerial object that’s unidentified.

I live within walking distance of Breakaway/40XS here in Cedar Park, and I’m always jealous of those bastards who just taxi out of their hangar for the $100 hamburger. Of course there’s a whole other world of expenses and headaches, but I can dream. Highlight of my walks over there was a Blackhawk practicing some kind of low approach, was an impressive sight. Regarding that 30-hour Queen getting put down, sucks so hard. Always wanted one of those luggage tags made out of an aircraft skin but the price seems stupid for what they are.

Yeah I hate playing God’s Gift when it matters. Hopefully GIA is rocking, can’t watch tonight

Well yeah, it’s fluid (response to Ballgame)

Again, it’ll deflate very slowly and take a long time (possibly days) to come down, all while it drifts into commercial airspace or outside territorial waters or onto power lines or whatever. They aren’t seriously pressurized like a balloon at home and are YUGE.

Poking holes in large balloons doesn’t seem to work very well…at least not when you are trying to down it in a specific place. It’s unpredictable, which in the military is bad news. So it’s feasible but if emptying a few hundred rounds of 20mm doesn’t work well, I’d be surprised if a sidewinder with flechettes would be much better. But I’m sure you’re right insofar as Raytheon eyeing more money.

There’s a reason they use the AIM-9x version…it’s not a ‘heat seeker’ in the traditional sense. It uses contrast imaging in the IR spectrum, of which a balloon/equipment in a -40C sky would stand out like a sore thumb. Also has the added benefit of not using active radar terminal guidance like an AMRAAM would, which is nice because the return from a balloon/equipment is tiny and limits what China can glean from the emissions signature. The main military intel I’d guess they can capture from a balloon vs satellite is signal data on the different radar modes of our fighters like the Raptor. Given the inverse square law, I’m sure they have all they need on stuff like NORAD and AWACS, but probably not shorter range stuff like fighters and missiles…and comms capture by amateurs shows the fighter jokes stating their radars have a hard time maintaining lock, so if anything China may be trying to build a library of data to update their RWR tech as we light it up trying to plot an intercept. I’d read that F15s have that Sniper/whatever pod that can do IRST and may be helping the Raptors figure out where they are to get within range of a Sidewinder lock. That’s better than giving radar info to China. There’s just no way they’re going to be able to engage visually at 600 knots…not without risking a $200M fighter and pilot. The awesome book Sled Driver has a paragraph where an SR-71 flies by a weather balloon. Granted it was Mach 3 but he flew by it so fast that it was gone in a blink. A fighter probably has a decent coffin corner at high altitude so they can’t just drop flaps and lazily do circles around it to engage visually, so using a sidewinder is the safest/cheapest/smartest way to take it out. TLDR: A modern sidewinder makes sense as it has the best approach to engaging the target in a safe, effective way without giving up more info on our radars/missiles than necessary.

Ahh yea the Fermi Paradox…at once both sad and incredibly scary. Where are all the aliens? One of the possibilities is that the galaxy is controlled by a predatory species that waits until a planet evolves enough to be a threat, then extinguished the civilization. Others out there are shaking their heads at us announcing our presence with emissions. Aka ‘No news is good news’ Or The Great Filter theory that there lies something which advanced life has great difficulty moving past…and we better hope that it’s behind us (multi cellular life, an evolved brain, nearby supernovae, gamma ray burst, etc) and not ahead of us (destroying ourselves with nuclear war, some undiscovered tech that wipes us out, exhausting our planets resources, etc). Aka ‘if we discover advanced, dead life on another planet it’s horrible news’ Space you scary

Thriller meets Squid Games

Luckily they seem easily identifiable given they often have an American flag, cross or gun emoji in their profile name. And if not, they unironically use ‘woke’ regularly.

Yep he’s indicative of a lot of formerly intelligent-appearing, reasonably thoughtful, well intentioned people that either got sucked in or decided to join in the grift machine. It’s sadly happened to some my friends IRL, but I’ve long given up on trying to reason and simply don’t see them anymore…not necessarily because I may disagree with their views, but I’ve got enough stress in my life without listening to someone rail against or hate ‘others’ while drowning themselves in self pity. I’m getting too old to humor that shit.

Very well could be what happens to my Pokes too, come right back down to earth…especially without our #2 player for the rest of the season. Basketball doesn’t seem as streaky as baseball, but it’s not far behind.

Well yeah. If you don’t have any filtering in place on radar, especially long range OTH stuff, it’ll be a cluttered mess where you end up seeing nothing useful…birds, spurious returns, the ionosphere, etc. Fighter pilots use that to their advantage in a BVR dogfight, lookup ‘notching’. Rogoway is a pretty good source and has had a lot of great scoops on TheWarzone. What I think he’s leaving out here is just how much more manpower likely has to be dedicated to watching radar scopes, in peacetime, to identify/track/investigate returns that are not part of the traditional aircraft/ICBM threat vector. Of course the same people who were bitching about not shooting down the first balloon are now bitching about the costs of shooting down balloons…so who knows. It’s not only F22 flight hours and AIM9x, but tankers and maintenance just to get them there. Curious where this all leads.

And people give me shit for being a Debby downer osu fan. I lurk this thread a lot and don’t post much because superstition, but damn man

Didn’t we start like 1-4 in conference? Kinda like Holliday with baseball, I’m ok with a slow start if we gel heading into postseason. Which is good because I like Boynton as a person and representative of our university, just want to see progress without a once-in-generational talent

That was one of the more complete games they’ve played this season. Nice to see them finally put it all together for a stretch, we started out rough. Might be saving Boyntons job there.

Only? Been behind or tied most of the game. Losing second half leads has been a hallmark of this team all year but that’s not the case tonight

I do not leak. You leak.

Oblig