Nuke

fun and trip do not belong in the same sentence.

if i could afford to go to the path of totality, i wouldn't.

what is it exactly that bombardier beetles excrete? what would its isp be? beetle powered rockets anyone? makes more sense than fungus drive.

the weather has done like five different things today. so im staying in now.

human hands are actually quite devolved from our ape roots. though still enough to make us able toolsmiths. for exoskeletons, take your typical crab claw, square it up a bit, elongate, and multiply by 5. also a big fan of cephalopod aliens. tenticles are actually quite dexterous but aquadic environment might limit technological progress. and bombardier beetles are a thing. figure when designing a non-humanoid alien is to look at all the tricks life has managed here. imagine the evolutionary pressure that gets them there. then figure out what kind of evolutionary pressures are in the setting. once you throw genetic engineering into the mix all bets are off. but you are probibly going to start with an existing species as a substrate and then adapt changes to it, often from other species of compatible genetic makeup (pretty much from its own biosphere). cross sphere intermixing might be a hallmark of more advanced genetic engineering. being able to create a species from scratch would require god tier genetic engineering.

the reduced view angle was mostly a byproduct of making the pixels directional so either one eye or the other could see them. so you are actively reducing the viewing angles.

there used to be a large number of methods for stereo vision. interleaving vertical scanlines was one of them. this could be used with a prismatic layer to send alternating scanlines to one eye or the other. i think a number of products used technology like this, but its one of the many stereo technologies that never caught on (read all of them). modern vr headsets have mostly solved this problem. though frankly i miss shutter glasses.

peeps are best served on fire.

who summoned me from my cave!

you need to get it at least over to one of the loading cranes. probibly offload and then take the ship to drydock for repair. of course you need to clear the channel first before you can do that.

its a neopanamax. which is bigger (read more expensive).

so, WE MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS. sorry, il leave now.

im not sure what the mass of the ship was, but based on the displacement value from wikipedia, i think i pegged the impact energy at around 41 gigajoules. any idea on how to stop or deflect that?

oh please, they are both playing with money guns right now.

not to say i don't like movies about pirates. i just don't like fantasy pirates.

am i a bad person for not liking any of the pirates movies?

any safety is an illusion anyway. sure we learn where the gotchas are, sometimes there is something that can be done, but usually theres not, and if it is human ingenuity will inevitably find a new way to screw up. all while everyone involved tries to cya while families of the dead cry out for blood and those in power are more than willing to give it to them. its the price of progress, otherwise we risk getting eaten by a bear when we leave our cave.

just stick an srb on the bow.

this ship didn't even have a wikipedia article until it hit the bridge, now its full of data. thruster data wasn't there when i read the article this morning.

bigger aperture longer range i think. max range is limited by optics, but also light delay vs target maneuverability. at some point the time of light delay exceeds the time it takes for the target clear the beam path at a random angle (thus defeating predictions of where it may be). lenses are heavy and even very transparent mirrors lenses heat up fast when powerful lasers are going through them. deforming the lens and messing up focus. why i used the more general term optics. mirrors are easier to actively cool as you can have coolant channels baked into the mirror substrate.

wasnt sure about the thrusters on the ship. wikipedia article indicated single prop shaft. but on most designs with omnithrusters or lateral bow thrusters, the motors tend to be electric.

i wish reporters were more competent that randos on the internet. having met a few in my life, they are selected for looks not brains.

you can see the whole thing from the city cam video. power failures, the clearing of the bridge (in the minutes before traffic was light but consistent). i bet they called it in when they first lost power, i cant imagine 911 dispatch being that fast in baltimore. wonder why the word wasn't passed to the construction crew. judging by the length of the ramps it was likely out of bullhorn range and the crew was probably operating loud machinery wearing hearing protection and not listening to the radio.

100000 tons. thats a thousand direwolves. say goodbye to the free rasalhauge republic. the bridge pier didn't stand a chance.

was wrong about the electric thrusters, this thing has a conventional propeller.