DDE

The Hobbit is self-indulgent (which isn't necessarily a bad thing... so are the Bond movies) and the three movies suffer from mounting tonal dissonance between LotR-level serious violence, and slapstick fights (this is especially notable if you consider the scenes only included in the Extended Edition). Basically, it never got over the differences between LotR and its earlier installment. Also, unnecessary love triangle added in post-production. Evangeline Lilly, who only signed up on the condition there won't be a love triangle, was not amused. Ironically, Tolkien at one point wanted to rewrite The Hobbit to align it with LotR, but was talked out of it.

It's hardly new, nor was he particularly highly-placed. I count at least two more cases of FSB coming down on scientists that were caught halfway between the civilian world and the world of military hypersonics. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4596291 https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4799402 And that's not including Rogozin's aide: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4406832 Since the charge is usually that they were a bit too loose-lipped in international scientific exchanges (or, in case with Safronov, he was a reporter), yes, chilling.

In case you haven't had your fill of politics, does anyone remember Ajax, the Soviet Skylon equivalent making extensive use of MHD and plasma shenanigans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaks Well, I have good news and bad news. Good news is apparently the person still trying to make it work had enough legit info to warrant a treason charge. Bad news is... treason charge. https://ria.ru/20210812/kuranov-1745507604.html

Did you miss the Soyuz MS-09 hole gossip? https://tass.ru/kosmos/12115081 TL;DR: it took someone nine tries, the ne'er-do-well even tried drilling straight through one of the structural frames - indicating they weren't properly anchored in zero-G, and they weren't familiar with the structural layout. Plus the "sauce" repeats the claim that vacuum testing would've caught the hole. Basically, "I'm not saying it's Americans... ...but they didn't show up for lie detector tests."

When you have fuel pump problems in a WWII-vintage GAZ 67:

This has led to the theory that the entire domain is some kind of psyop, with the looniest types being elevated and cultivated, perhaos even by feeding them scraps of truth. A more general strain of thought is the annoyance that flying saucers and claims of nefarious plotting by politicians are both lumped together as "conspiracy theories". It's a confirmed fact this is done to discredit both (see CIA circular on countering criticism of the Warren Commission report). Biological matter doesn't have that many unique qualities, and those it has are peculiar to our environment. The aliens aren't coming to serve man.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58128773

So, a random image of a Pallas's cat gets more likes than my OC. Have it your way.

Amusingly, it has relevance to the linguisric branch-off in this thread. The project does sound a bit mad, but, to an external observer, probably so does all of maths.

Broke: Molotov cocktail Woke: Molotov napalm cocktail Bespoke: Molotov white phosphorus cocktail Kerbal: glass balls full of a white phosphorus mixture fired using blank 12 gauge cartidges

Well, in all likelihood you need to push it out through a hole in your spacecraft. A completely spherical design isn't terribly conducive to that. It also gives too small a lever for RCS.

"Not In My Bottom Line" Frankly, you're dealing with the singular most extreme case of an externality. You can no longer count on state intervention because states are incentivized to race to the bottom if not outight focus on the benefits of global warming, lest they fall behind in the dog-eats-dog area of economic geopolitics.

Yeah, and I'm now on a quest to film a sock drawer intrusion.

It has the advantage of cheap projectiles with destructive power that doesn't decay over range, so it has a niche in saturation fire. Dumbfire shells and guided missiles also form the two extremes of a whole continuum of physical projectiles.

Enough about tanks. How about Untitled Steamship?

Will get back with my absolute meme machines tomorrow once on desktop. For now, have a piblic domain creature.

Another year inside? Ugh.

"X" for doubt

To be fair, the text under discussion is a popsci author writing for RT.

Embryological studies inside a centrifuge and in 0-g onboard Nauka. And the lucky species is ...Japanese quail? https://tass.ru/kosmos/12086555

So here I was checking up on what mud the infowarriors at RT are raking today when a headline caught my eye. The article within proved so infuriating that I've decided to create a thread. The arrogant mentality that saw Galileo derided still exists today, claims Harvard professor who wants to prove aliens exist OK, right out of the gate we're getting a Galileo Gambit. A literal Galileo Gambit. Funny thing is, I also knew right then and there who the "Harvard Professor" is going to be, and I was right. Avi Loeb does have a controversial area to his career as an astrophysics superstar. Anyone remember Project Starshot? That affordable interstellar probe program, if only we had huge laser cannons in space? He seems to have been involved in it. At the very least, this explains why, when he saw the puzzling data about ʻOumuamua, he became dead-set that it's a discarded alien lightsail. Since then he seems to have been on a PR blitzkrieg related to SETI. I first heard of him from r/space, who were very irked: about a week prior he had a Reddit AMA where his justification for excluding every other explanation of ʻOumuamua's anomalous behavior amounted to "I'm a Harvard professor", and where a few of the more persistent doubters were banned. Apparently this radical damage control caused a brouhaha among the mods of r/AskScience. This guy seems to have massive clout, and he's now out there selling what smells like snake oil. This is continuing the pattern of alien/UAP hype of the last few years. I'm not sure what the heck is going on, but it does not seem good. So, let's discuss. Link to article proper: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/531251-avi-loeb-ufo-galileo/ Full text below.