SunlitZelkova

You'll be okay. *gives hug across cyberspace*

The Swedish did it too actually, but not only with jets but props as well! The SAAB J21 and A21 had a successful career in the Swedish Air Force after the military buildup begun during WWII began to actually come to fruition during the late 1940s. A jet-powered variant was built in small numbers (I didn't realize but apparently besides the Yak-3 to Yak-15 transition it was the only aircraft successfully converted from propeller to jet propulsion) until all of them were replaced by the Tunnan and Vampire.

It's real life nickname was "A$$ender" (not censored obviously).

Either a lot of Russian language websites with cool art have been taken down/expired or they're region blocked in Japan, because I tried to search "СССР 2000 год" and the results were really lame compared to when I did it back in America two years ago.

Maybe their descendants tried again and succeeded in doing so, and then commercialized the Grail's connective powers and sold it as Scotch Tape.

The motto of my university is to be a “22nd century university.” I had immense difficulty holding back laughter as I discovered the school portal looks like it’s from the 1990s despite the school having been founded in 2021. Even my community college’s portal back in the US looked like it was up to late 2010s standards. There’s a lot of novel things here, but I can’t help but believe there is some truth to the adage “Japan has been living in the 2000s since the 1980s.” Joke’s on people who use that as an insult though, I love me some retrofuturism in real life.

Reminds me of that Minuteman flying through (destroying) a Soviet flag that's painted on the blast door of the preserved Minuteman II silo and Missile Alert Facility. I can't remember which state it's in. I actually drew an updated version of it with a Chinese flag, but not only can it be construed as political but the reasons I drew it were political so I'm not gonna post it here.

I had my matriculation ceremony for university today. It’s actually the day after here, but I count late nights and early mornings as one single unit. I’ve realized I suck at Japanese so to temper my expectations about interacting with people I’ve been focusing on reviewing Russian skills*. Just to maintain hand writing and try and pry open opportunities to use it more in daily life, I’ve begun writing as many notes as possible. Even if I don’t have time to look up translations or case uses. Just to practice hand writing. So I reminded myself about today by writing серемони матрикулации on a sticky note lol. *Brilliant plan right? What are the odds I’m gonna run into a Russian speaking person in Hiroshima of all places and be tempted to speak more than I can understand? On that note… I saw a meme several weeks ago about “English in my head, English when I speak” with a finely drawn and poorly drawn horse, respectively, and I kinda wonder if that goes all ways. This school is very cosmopolitan, in just a couple days I’ve spoken with persons from Nigeria, Botswana, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Czech Republic, Argentina, and of course Japan. And I can barely understand what anyone is saying. As I’m trying to write this it’s kinda making sense. Sure, the school required a passing TOEFL score to enter if your native tongue wasn’t English. But how good are speaking tests anyways? When I took end of term exams during Russian courses I pronounced «ый» in adjectives like «ий» so many times, yet the teacher/professor never noticed. Granted it was over Zoom due to her fear of a long COVID recurrence, so it might have been impossible to hear. Another thing is that everyone is speaking so quiet. I thought all the kids these days blasted their headphones. Yet I seem to be the only one saying “huh?” and “what’s that?” while cupping my ear and leaning in. That’s my little slice of life I had to share at the corner bakery cafe that is the KSP forum lounge. Cheers.

When I think using the mindset of that "other" solution I mentioned, what I come up with makes Edward Teller look like Mahatma Gandhi.

@AlamoVampire I'm hearing your news only now as I've been away from the forums for a few days. I extend my deep condolences. I just left my mother and the rest of my family to begin attending university in a different country. Parting with them on a temporary basis was difficult enough, I cannot imagine what you are going through. I don't really pray anymore, despite continuing to hold some degree of religious belief. I'm not sure if this helps. All I can say is, know that this one person feels pain for you. I have not experienced the feeling of wanting to be with another human being and never being able to again, only such a feeling with animals. Idk. The worst thing that's happened to me when suffering loss- specifically the loss of those pets- was being told to move on. As if there is some set of actions you can take, according to a sort of manual, and the pain will go away. I don't believe that's the case. That's not necessarily advice, just some food for thought. So what I really want to say is this one person feels pain for you, and, does not hold expectations. If your pain is still intense months, even years from now, and you are posting about it here, I will not tell you to get over it. I'll continue to listen (read). And my pain for you will continue. I don't think anyone is supposed to get over pain. It's more about learning to live with it. That's where my journey took me. You will go on yours, and find your own answers. I hope that you will find them, at least. Even if I was to make a request to a deity, in the end I'm just hoping for the good outcome I desire to be granted. Note that I mean journey in a much more abstract, philosophical sense. Consciously declaring "I'm going to explore my feelings and see how I can get better" does not really mark the start of a journey, but is part of one that is ongoing, one that cannot be initiated or ended, for it is eternal. It is unconscious, existing outside of our own faculties. Perhaps when saying journey, what I am actually referring to is experience. Not in choosing to have a certain experience, like going to a concert... but rather the very essence of being alive and sensing things, thinking about things. I hope that your journey ends with peace. Ends with feeling better. On a different level, I believe and know that your journey will have such an outcome, but it's based in that "some degree of religious belief" I mentioned earlier. That's my personal opinion. I don't think that it makes it better for you, or that it should make it better for you. But ending a response to such terrible news with "I hope you're gonna be okay" just seems a little lacking somehow. As something I would say, not that when others say the same, they are lacking in compassion or something. I only say hope- and nothing else- with the intent of actually providing something... a form of condolence, I guess... because that's all I can do. I don't think anyone has a magic formula that can be applied to others' pain as a cure or alleviation. We can make formulas for ourselves, but it can only be a sort of study material or advice for others. It can't be applied directly, it just won't have the same effect. Everyone has their own way of thinking and feeling, and with such a deep, painful issue as the loss of a loved one, the only way one can meet that way of thinking and feeling is by their own hand (or mind). So I don't actually know if you'll be okay. If it will get better. But I can hope you'll be okay; hope it will get better. When my pets passed away, I did not have anyone hoping things got better except in a way that suited their expectations. That made it take longer for me to get better. So even if I'm just a wall of text on a screen, I'd like you to know there's someone feeling pain for you and hoping you'll get better, but with no conditions as to exactly how (or when) you do. In the hope that might help a little bit. I don't know you well, but I wanted to try my best to console, and I felt that the best I could do was (is) just trying to be the kind of person I would have wanted to have around- or rather, simply know existed- when I suffered my own loss.

Can one truly love without loving everything? That is, is true love love if there is hate at the same time? As I was dealing with my nuclear anxiety in Tokyo, I was overcome by the intense feeling I could not hate anyone or anything, period, if I was to truly have compassion for anyone at all. The thought that entered my head was this: loving one thing alone is an excuse to hate another. Thus it isn't true love. Note that this notion applies to my very philosophical and... how to put it... spiritual? mind. Of course, by applying this rule, I love those who love one thing while hating another. As someone who values personal autonomy to the highest degree, I do not translate love for all into being love for all on the condition that they are eventually "transformed" into a different, very specific state that suits my personal liking. By love I mean love in the sense of agape. Some context though: I consider much of what I see to be an illusion. A cruel illusion that can hurt, of course, but nonetheless an illusion. I hope this next part isn't too political. What drove me to this was the nonsensicality of existing nuclear disarmament arguments. It just makes zero sense to eliminate one class of weapons without not only eliminating other weapons, but violence as a whole. There's no argument there that anyone will ever be able to agree on. Side A and Side B will never convince each other to try and prevent the mass violence of a nuclear war if *some* violence is okay. Because which form of violence is okay is totally opinionated. You can't form logic around it. Justifying violence requires saying, "I have the right to end this person's life... because I said so." You can do mental gymnastics, of course, but realistically if you have the right to take someone's life, so do they have the right to take yours. Because what you're really saying is "It's okay for me to kill because I have a good reason. If I didn't, it wouldn't be okay." And thus all they have to have is a "good reason" and it's okay for them to kill you, and anyone else. But what a good reason is is entirely up to the person deciding. Because there is no objective "good reason." And what we're left with is it being quite natural that violence and war seems to never end, because the people trying to create peace aren't creating peace for all, they're creating peace for themselves. In the way they want. But I can't hate these people, those who accept violence in some instances. Because to hate and dislike... dislike unless a certain condition is met, i.e. them becoming more like how I think they should... would be to become one of them. Or rather, to join this endless cycle of suffering. Inflicting suffering and having it inflicted back on me. Infinitely. Or until "There's two of us standing and only one of them." Thus I am led to believe one cannot find peace or have compassion without eliminating the concept of us and them, and instead only seeing all. This involves an immense degree of compassion and trust. It involves seeing those who potentially threaten your own life as sentient, feeling beings, rather than part of a machine-like "Them." Hoping... because that's really all that can be done, it's impossible to know... that they will make a reciprocal decision about how to interact with yourself. And then even if they harm you, still loving them anyways. Loving them despite what they do. Not what they do, of course. But loving the person. Not the action. And (bear with me) not loving them believing they "truly" are or can be different, but simply loving them. Loving everyone and everything. I have no idea how to explain this in a way that makes more sense. Human society, as well as human behavior, is, at least from some scientists' POV, specifically structured around an "Us" and "Them" system. That's who we are. Talk of inner humanity and such, is, IMO, just mental gymnastics to convince ourselves "Us" are better than "Them." At the end of the day even the most peaceful person is, if left with no other option, gonna take the life of another in order to defend something they love. The problem is, from the point of view of "Them," we are "Them." Thus there's no way out of this sort of "game." But we... especially I... was left with the question of why this keeps happening. Why do people hurt each other? Which brings me to the other solution to this question. Which is to realize our "morals" are just fantasies we cook up to convince ourselves we are better than "Them," as evidenced by how what we do does not differ from what they do except who it's targeted towards, and that the reality is that these moral distinctions are silly. What matters is that we are alive and they are not (in other words, unable to harm us). There is no point in handicapping responses to threats beyond making yourself feel good that you are. Feeling good is an intangible thought. Fake, in other words. But the threat is real. The possibility is real. So why wait? Why not hit the threat now before it hits us? There's nothing holding us back except ourselves. The same is the only thing holding them back. But can we trust them to hold themselves back? We don't even trust them now. It's the whole point of classifying them as a threat (note that this may sound like I'm describing geopolitics but it can mean anything. Household against robber, business against business, person against murderer, and so on). やれる前にやれ. A yakuza saying to kill before being killed. And my own little phrase I've come up with to describe this thought process. Hit hard, hit fast, hit now. Anything less is inviting an attack on you and what you care about. And this brings me back to that notion of mine. You either love all or you don't truly love at all. Because the end result of allowing some violence to be okay and not others is just a pure free-for-all murder fest. Group against group. Individual against individual. History does not occur according to formulas or patterns. It shifts without rhyme or reason. If one doesn't recognize that and make the choice to take a position and defend it no matter what, they will find themselves suddenly looking a lot like the people they think they are different from one day. Because if pushed... if the external situation was in a certain way... we'd do exactly what they are doing to us. Because if there's a "good" enough reason to do something... But if we stick to one idea and never violate it... not "because of the extraordinary situation," or "because of the demands of the environment around me," etc... I think we will find ourselves suddenly in a much more peaceful and friendly world. Even if we are indeed different in many ways. Because I vow not to take your life, and you vow not to take mine. No matter what. We can talk about how to resolve issues like getting enough food and water, securing shelter, etc., for as long as we want. Because we're alive, and will be for a long time. The specter of many rather choosing to kill me... and millions of others... and take all the food and water for themself haunts me everyday. Killing, killing, killing. Not only "until there is no one left." Because anyone dying in the first place is a tragedy. Mass death doesn't suddenly become more tragic when there's no one left to kill. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk Some notes: These references to killing apply to humans vs. humans. I don't see any sense in militant vegetarianism, we are omnivores and the idea that animal life should not be taken but plant life can devalues plant life, who have just as much a right to life as do animals. I.e. I don't think capacity to feel pain or sentience defines the value of life. Anything living should live. But living things need to eat other living things in order to live. Thus eating animals is simply part of the way reality is. On the other hand, I do object to making these animals suffer for extended periods of time in the process of raising them (in other words I don't like factory farms), but that's my opinion... any how I digress. Some of the stuff about war may sound political. If you choose to respond, please try to talk about war as a concept rather than listing real life examples. I'm not trying to point fingers at specific individuals, because one man is just as culpable for justifying and carrying out violence as any other. All violence is bad, IMO, not just specific instances.

Just wait until Super Heavy is equipped with AI, and Anon decided to hack it and replace its robotic, simplistic mind with that of a cat. It will slip out of the launch tower's hands by any means possible. However, SpaceX will just need to develop a method to wrap it in a towel, and it will be easy to pick up and move to the backroom where it can be tested for viruses. Source: personal experience at the vet.

Kind of half negative thought half interesting thing. I’m in Tokyo right now and I’m overcome by immense nuclear anxiety. All I see is a sea of fire and the faces of dead people. I’ve decided to watch The Sacrifice tonight. I don’t know what for. It’ll be interesting to see how it impacts my fears. All I’m going into it with is the blurb at the top of the Wikipedia article.

I’ve been getting tuned back in to my Sovietophilia after a long hiatus, but I have no interest in watching the For All Mankind spinoff that’s supposed to showcase how the Soviets landed on the Moon first in that world. The main thing is the description says it’s about the lives of the engineers and cosmonauts as well as “the intelligence officers embedded among them.” First point: I find it really sad how after WWII ended, we (American filmgoers) were getting nuanced (if maybe sometimes flawed) views of the Axis, especially in films like Tora, Tora, Tora! in 1970, but a similar amount of time as roughly passed since the end of the Cold War (roughly 30 years) and the way the USSR is represented is basically the same as it was in the 1980s. And I don’t mean to get political, but I don’t understand how this can be when the PRC still exists and it literally has gotten better treatment in films like the Independence Day sequel despite actually being described as a current threat to the US. Okay, second point: This premise is just ridiculous. It’s one thing for the KGB to find out an engineer traveling to the US is in a relationship with an American engineer and then trying to steer that affair towards the extraction of information, which happened. But then last season we found out this engineer was a KGB asset the entire time and had been since the 1960s. What??? Forgoing that there is no historical evidence any engineers were ever made to do this, the idea is completely nonsensical. Why would they need to do this? The Party and military already literally had direct control over the space program, its tasks, etc. They could not do anything without their approval, so there was no danger of them going off and doing their own thing… apart from actually getting permission to do their own thing from the government which is why there are so many wacky proposals out there from Korolyov and Chelomei. Fear of defection? My understanding is this didn’t rely on having people monitoring each other as instructed by a KGB officer. Especially working in the aerospace industry at that time, it was probably just common sense to make sure no one was planning on doing anything crazy, whether it be for love of country or fear for the persons wellbeing. And there certainly wasn’t much of a reason to defect. Engineers received relatively lavish amenities compared to the average citizen, and were exempted from mandatory conscription (the latter at least while Korolyov was alive). Even during the Stalin era this sort of thing did not exist. They just built up their own case and didn’t need to instruct the others around the suspect to play along because they were so feared. Glushko was not an “NKVD asset” he just did what he had to to save himself once Korolyov was arrested. I find the Soviet space program fascinating, specifically because its flaws were so human, as were its dreams. Meanwhile every other country that has a space program still exists and is blinded by the idealism that bogs down not only space endeavors but by the same mechanism, the whole of society. I just can’t watch it be sullied for things it never did while the space program of the country the upcoming drama is made in is rife with bureaucratic and cultural issues eerily reminiscent of the actual issues the Soviet space program had, which the creators of the show are trying to set themselves apart from by demonizing the Soviet aerospace industry.

In English Electric’s defence I’m pretty sure PR indicates it was for photoreconnaissance, meaning this was designed to go as fast as possible at high altitude on a single, precalculated route. This guy probably just had to push some buttons to activate the cameras when a buzzer, triggered by the pilot, rang, indicating they were over the target area. Reading about the Canberra a little just now I have to say, what bad luck it and other early Cold War jet bombers built around WW2 era specifications had. It was supposed to be the jet powered replacement for the Mosquito, a legendary aircraft. But by the time it came on the scene, the Soviets already had a horde of MiG-15s with the GSFG- ironically powered by reverse engineered British engines- and had war broken out would probably not have had the spectacular record its prop ancestor had.

Yeah, the idea of it never going away is a total joke when you think about the aridification going on around the world and the amount of water needed to cool data centers. It’s not a bad thing at all though. I get that it can be cool to scroll back through your email and see correspondences from X years ago, but realistically there’s so much that should be thrown away. There’s a reason people tend to keep a couple old love letters from their youth rather than a dedicated shed of them with its own insulation, AC and lighting.

I read Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick for the first time. There’s a monetary unit in it called a crumble, and I thought PKD was just being silly because he uses random words like that sometimes. The AI supercomputer in The Divine Invasion is called Big Noodle, for example. But I found out at the end that this has a little more meaning than some of his other choices. A character lists two currencies, one being a crumble and the other a… ruble. So PKD basically just took the last three letters of the Romanization of рубль and found an English word with the same ending. In fact “ruble” is inside “crumble.” The mind of a published SF author is truly something else.

Finally, a shirt maker who appreciates the complexities of aerodynamics research conducted by NASA and the relationship between the Western and Russian tech sectors+MICs. Can’t wait for my Toshiba hoodie to come with a Pr.671RTM nuclear attack submarine on it. (Half joking because I’m extrapolating from one news report about electronics in the Kh-101 and attaching it to the Su-57 and am also assuming there’s a line that can be drawn between 60s NASA aerodynamic research, fourth gen fighters, and finally fifth gen fighter design) But on the other hand, I’d actually love a Toshiba hoodie with a Pr.671RTM class SSN on it, now that I think about it!

I’m convinced logic is an illusion. You can come up with a hundred logical reasons for doing X and a hundred logical reasons for not doing X. All that matters is which you believe in. Thus I argue instead of searching for reasons why we should do things, we should decide whether we want to do them ourselves. “Do, don’t think.” Because we can do whatever we want to if we put our minds to it. Put our minds to things in that glorious, arbitrary, utterly human way. Instead we lie to ourselves with “justifications.” If we accepted we’re all just making this stuff up there’d be so much less antagonism and more understanding, IMO. We laugh at toddlers for trying to set rules for their games and arguing about them and crying as each tries to usurp the other through ever more complex logic, but that’s exactly how adults bring about such great suffering upon each other in the “real world.”

As long as you can afford it, I’d say go for it. Especially since it sounds likes you have a solid idea for the expanse and focus of your layout, it’s a good investment that will provide hours of fun. Those prices aren’t bad at all. That’s pretty much what you’d have to pay for N scale new. Are the HO listings new too? Just be careful before you buy online. If you can, contact the seller and ask about the shipping method. If there are reviews, read them and make sure they have a high approval rate. Note that depending on the site there are caveats. Reviews can be faked and such. That’s a great choice! There’s a lot of HO 1950s vehicles out there, as well as era-agnostic structures and figures. I was buying vehicles for my N scale layout the other day and I literally had 2 choices for 1950s cars. I browsed HO for the heck of it and there were 10+. This was on Walther’s, the online market for train stuff. I’m sure other sites have great selection too! If the seller seems trustworthy I’d say go for the online order. A lot of model train shops are very “analog” businesses that prefer to do business face to face and thus don’t post their listings online. Especially if the online option is exactly what you want, I’d say go for it. You wouldn’t want to find yourself disappointed after traveling to the physical train store. Hopefully the online market has buyer’s protection. Worst case scenario you’ll be repacking the box it came in, dropping it off at the post office, and getting your money back in a couple business days. I just mention this because I actually went to my local hobby shop to buy an NP diesel locomotive in July and brought it home to find out when I raised the throttle the lights came on but it didn’t move. I had the option to return but instead planned to take it to the (local) proper train shop and have it repaired. Moral of the story is there are options depending on how much money you’re willing or able to spend. One last piece of advice: don’t worry about getting it done right away. I didn’t actually have money to repair that NP diesel before leaving for Japan to attend college, and thus I won’t be seeing it run for four years or more. But I don’t consider it a waste because I bought it in otherwise good condition for a decent price ($139.99) and it’s such a rare paint scheme to see produced + one that I dreamed of owning in some form since I was a child that I consider it to be worth it. The choice is yours though! Good luck and have fun, purchasing it and getting excited for it to arrive is part of the experience, especially if you’re like me and dreamed of having an electric train layout as a kid but, being a kid, never had the wherewithal to make the dream come true.

Unless you’re buying a ready to run set, online is not the best choice to order products. Do you know if there are any hobby shops or model train stories in your area? What brand would be best depends on what gauge you’re interested in. What gauge you choose will also affect the availability of certain items. For example, there’s a wide selection of items for HO gauge, but with N gauge there’s a lot more limitations, especially when it comes to accessories. What size layout are you thinking? Or were you thinking more of just setting it up on the floor or table from time to time? As far as cost goes, it depends on what types of engines you want to run and at what gauge. N gauge steam locomotives are notoriously expensive in the US. Diesel F units would be less expensive. Another factor is how many trains you want to run. If you’re trying to run multiple on a single mass of track, you’ll need DCC equipment, which can double costs of locomotives at times. Note there are other ways to have multiple trains running. Simply setting up one line of track and having another disconnected will require two controllers/transformers but would be cheaper than DCC likely. Another factor in regards to cost is whether you’re willing to buy used or not. I visited Spokane to see my grandparents in July and was surprised at how good quality and cheap a lot of the rolling stock was at the local train store. Used of course, but it didn’t look bad at all. Contrast this with when I went to my hometown hobby shop a couple days later. Similar freight cars cost about double. Whether you’ll get a good deal though really depends on the shop though. Some shops don’t sell used items, only new ones. If you’re not sure about what gauge to choose, here’s some info. HO is in the middle ground between O and N. It’s still quite big, and thus engines can be more expensive at times. However, freight cars can often be about the same cost when bought new (24-30$). Engine prices will vary a bit, IIRC DC (analog control) ones can actually sometimes be the same price as N gauge ones (there was an HO Great Northern SW2 at my local hobby shop for 124$, meanwhile there was an N BNSF AC4400CW for about 110$). For DCC the costs are higher than it would be with N. N’s primary advantage is in space, you can either build a small layout in a smaller space or do more with a big space. With HO there is a lot more selection when it comes to accessories like buildings and vehicles. Note that with both HO and N a lot of buildings, like station platforms and freight receiving centers and what not, are assembled and painted like model airplane kits. Unless you plan on buying lighted ones (which are prefabricated) you’ll need those skills. Paints can be about 2-3$, you won’t need a huge selection of colors. Brushes are cheap, paint thinner for cleaning them is 10$ or so, primer is similar in cost to the paints. Cement is also 10$ or less. It isn’t too tricky, and given it’s a building and not an airplane or car there’s room for errors in case you don’t have prior experience building models. White glue is required too for applying the windows, which are usually little sheets of acrylic you cut out with an Xacto knife or something similar. Depending on the manufacturer N can be lacking in details, especially if you buy older (used) models. HO obviously gives a lot more room for details given its size. Something to note about model railroading is that it isn’t like building plastic models of planes or ships where there are often a wide selection of classic, famous vehicles on the shelf at all times. Manufacturers often stick to famous railroads and don’t keep any models in stock constantly, things come and go over the years. More famous models like F units will appear regularly, but something like the Pennsylvania Sharknose steam locomotives would be rarer. Availability of the certain railroad you want will kind of depend on where you live. Western railroads like Great Northern and Southern Pacific are easier to get west of the Rockies, while East Coast railroads are easier to find over there. That said, there can still be a sort of lacking because it all depends on the manufacturers decisions about what to produce. One last thing about cost: it depends on what type of layout you want to build. I basically have most of what I need for my layout based on the Pacific Northwest, in total I’ve spent about maybe 900$ish. Although I’m planning to build some individual mountains I’m not planning to put the layout down permanently because I don’t have a good means of dust control; I’m a “set it up on the table/floor from time to time” guy. My layout is just a loop and siding because that’s all I can fit on the dinner table. I also thought long and hard about expansions with double track, I decided I just wasn’t interested in doing that. My layout is based on the Northwest Washington State, specifically rural areas, and thus I felt a single track line was more likely to be in place. What I mean to say is that the cost of the hobby is gonna depend on what your layout will look like; what era, what part of the country or state, etc. How much space you really have at home to build it. Whether it’s permanent or not. Etc. Pennsy served a pretty big portion of the country so there should be lots of possibilities there. Actually one more tip: model railroading is very hard to do to scale unless you’re just building a switching yard. So don’t think about it as much as “I want to emulate the Horseshoe Curve” and more “I’m going to base the area on these landmarks and elements of the real life area u like.” Instead of worrying about trying to have realistic passenger operations and thus trying to have a layout big enough to have two stations so you can take passengers between them, it’s better to just throw in things you love or think are cool. My layout only has a single station but I still have fun taking my passenger cars around it, even if from a different point of view it might seem weird to have a passenger train running on a line with only one station. Let me know what gauge you’re thinking of getting and I can provide more info! Good luck! EDIT- Forgot about O gauge. It’s BIG, and there’s basically only two companies in the US that manufacture it: Lionel and MTH. So selection is less. They’re also very expensive given their size.

Got confused because IIRC there’s a simple 3D search radar used on early Cold War Soviet naval vessels with that name. I visited the Wikipedia article and found out the 1998 SIOP had 69 nuclear weapons aimed at it. Weird number, unless a lot of the Ohio class’ Trident IIs have only 3 RVs to increase range. In which case that’s a full sub’s worth of missiles plus another three from another. I kinda have to wonder why so many though. Patriot in Ukraine reportedly has a 4.5% interception rate (which I’m taking as meaning against missiles fired at targets defended by Patriot because there’s no reason they’d include missiles not targeted, which would deflate their numbers and be bad for PR), and that’s with the PAC-3… arguably the most advanced point defence currently employed by NATO and friends. And of course the most recent data on ABM combat available to planners in 1998 probably would have been Gulf War experience, which wasn’t great either. My guess is multi-pronged. Nuclear planners were probably restricted by a) “need to use” mentality or orders but not enough targets worth anything else in the country b) overestimating the efficacy of Soviet/Russian equipment (although the Pioner’s 98% launch success rate among a sample of ~72 missiles is nothing to knock at) or c) nuclear planners did not actually know about the efficacy of their weapons and assume the 1960s SAC mentality of “drop like 20 bombs on it because we don’t know how many will work” was still necessary (or worse, because of bureaucratic tomfoolery it simply stuck regardless of knowledge) Considering some NATO official recently talked about a primary potential use of tactical nuclear weapons being repulsing an amphibious invasion of Denmark… in 2024… against the Baltic Fleet with a whopping 4 big landing ships… I wouldn’t be surprised if C was the main reason.

I never really knew him as Darth Vader, it wasn’t until just a few years ago I found out he played him. I always remember him as the SAC general aboard the Looking Glass in By Dawn’s Early Light.

I saw a news article describing how in Namibia, officials plan to kill, among other animals, elephants and rhinos and distribute the meat to people amidst drought. This is eerily similar to how I envision the Holocene extinction event in my world building projects that I made a couple years ago. Climate change and unsustainable farming practices lead to catastrophic loss of food production, thus people take to the wilderness to hunt food. Then, most animals are hunted to extinction, further exacerbating ecological damage. Humans then starve en mass. Those that survive live off rat and corvid meat (the top dogs of this era of death) for about a millennia before dying due to a combination of “generational malnutrition” and an inbreeding depression. On the bright side, the survival of many rodents and of course corvids means several million years later we get the likes of J. Monesi and the terror birds back. Bad news: while the K-Pg extinction event resulted in anything not much larger than a dog dying, anything bigger than a guinea pig isn’t so lucky in this one. Bye bye cats. You had a good run.

“Any possible system made by a man can be cracked by a man.”- Yuri Knorozov