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DDE

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Everything posted by DDE

  1. That be the leaked handout from Armiya-2020.
  2. Yuri Pasholok, WoT's paper tank expert in chief, has photographed the MAKS-2021 model of the Zeus tug from every imaginable angle, and added the smaller MAKS-2019 model for good measure. https://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/13526969.html @nyrath, want to have a bite?
  3. So, a slip ring, huh? I've heard of them being used for HEAT rounds in tank guns. Frankly I was wondering whether a long-range artillery piece designed primarily for guided rounds should even need rifling; the conclusion that it doesn't felt a bit too obvious in the face of recent procurement.
  4. If only. It appears that trading algos can set off feedback cycles with ridiculous ease. https://archive.md/hoD01 https://archive.md/Y7gQ And now to my own question: Most modern indirect-fire guns are rifled. Then how do they handle these? These doesn't seem to think spinning is a good trick
  5. Under certain condition the reactors could create an artificial Van Allen belt, but otherwise, it would just require non-persistent safety zones around active reactors.
  6. And that's before we mention Rosatom's Project Breakthrough with its in situ fuel reprocessing. Can't have a transport accident if you don't transport. Can't have a waste leak if 90% of the waste is eliminated.
  7. (integration of images is derped SMH)
  8. Just use of thorium, everything else being equal? Definitely overblown. It's just a useful uranium substitute. It's not an anti-proliferation silver bullet - you can build nukes out of U-233 and if you can enrich uranium to weapons-grade in the first place, the high-rad impurities in U-233 fuel aren't going to stop you.
  9. Anyway, to the shock of many (except probably the French government ) it's made it into the EU Taxonomy of green projects.
  10. The more I actually deal with AI, the less I can imagine it gaining any sort of agency... or to be able to rliably solve a problem in a complex environment. And that's before someone starts dropping logic bombs via EW systems.
  11. That's usually the case. Definitely the case for turbines, they have rubbish efficiency unless ran at RPMs well above what screws can tolerate.
  12. so much there's now an official project for portable nuclear reactors.
  13. China seems to have... a thing. A fetish, perhaps. https://www.facebook.com/108171200889481/posts/364293881943877/
  14. Because they use literal refuse for their fuel. New standards were supposed to be in place since 2020, but I think the shipping industry has been able to quietly flunk them. It was supposed to cause an apocalyptic fuel shortage, after all. Yeah, talk about old technology. The Japanese are making the next big leap by fielding Li-ion batteries on combat submarines. That spares them the finicky air-independent powerplants used on may other diesel-electrics. Well, electric transmission was popular in the 1920s before decent gearboxes were available for battleship-sized turbines. It's resurfaced on submarines (pun intended), including on nuclear-powered ones where the lack of mechanical noises is paramount. I know a few decigns switch to electric for for creep mode, and the French boomers are entirely electric. I also recall that (Russian) nuclear icebreakers are all-electric. Not really sure why. There's also an apparent trend of giving surface warships a battery-powered "silent running" mode. Then of course there's the IEP concept of dynamically switching the power loads between engines, hotel needs (on a cruise liner) or a hypothetical railgun or laser.
  15. On that topic, I remember seeing something from ING. There's not much info about the results, but they're trying to figure climate risk into mortgages and insurance. https://www.ing.com/MediaEditPage/ING-Climate-Risk-report-2020.htm (pdf, starting slide 19) P.S. I'm biased on "interesting" because I've spent the last several months of my life picking apart the tiniest shreds of this stuff.
  16. Instructions unclear, all of Europe crying foul. https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-you-need-to-know-mysterious-radiation-cloud-over-europe-russia-ruthenium ...anything that's not a video about a thorium-lowered car. Had to recently deal with someone who bought the hype. Ugh.
  17. The idea is that the pressure drop would yeet the entire propellant grain out of the nozzle.
  18. "What if we hooked an engine from a Tu-160 to an LNG tank and a generator?"
  19. LES doesn't rely on engines shutting down in the first place. Also, an SRB can be shut down on command by blowing up the nozzle. ICBMs do this routinely.
  20. And this will vary from population to population. I've come to treat Hofstede's cultural dimensions with suspicion, but I think one or even two feature the willingness to listen to experts (authority) vs reliance on own common sense (or "sense").
  21. I think this actually means they've gotten rid of most metal dust and shavings that tend to appear post-launch and in zero-G. I recall a similar procedure for the other modules well over a decade ago.
  22. Yes, but there is a demand for self-gratifying doomerism, and an unswayed observer isn't wrong to suspect a craving for power behind those slogans. Fortunately, most of those people don't get anywhere near power. But they're really loud, shaoe the debate, and yes, embitter the opposition. And this is where we arrive to the topic of scientism, which treats science as a bludgeon rather than a tool of inquiry. Thus "scientifically based" becomes an appeal to infallible authority. Your average religious person didn't go anywhere, they just found new, more socially acceptable sources of divine dispensations (and doom prophecies).
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