The worlds strongest, explosive powered nut cracker:
If you’ve ever tried to use a nutcracker, you soon realize they don’t have much in the way of actual force. So, YouTuber Shane Wighton decided to design and fabricate, from scratch, a nutcracker that could bite the hitch off a pick-up truck.
To power it, he used the explosive blank shells that are used in construction to drive nails into concrete. The video animates and explains the physics involved - he creates and machines each component, then has to re-design and re-produce those components to correct his mistakes.
One of my favorite authors is James Thurber, and one of my favorite (very) short stories of his (actually one of his fables) is about a bear who drank too much, then gave it up.
In the woods of the Far West there once lived a brown bear who could take it or let it alone. He would go into a bar where they sold mead, a fermented drink made of honey, and he would have just two drinks. Then he would put some money on the bar and say, "See what the bears in the back room will have," and he would go home. But finally he took to drinking by himself most of the day.
He would reel home at night, kick over the umbrella stand, knock down the bridge lamps, and ram his elbows through the windows. Then he would collapse on the floor and lie there until he went to sleep. His wife was greatly distressed and his children were very frightened.
At length the bear saw the error of his ways and began to reform. In the end he became a famous teetotaler and a persistent temperance lecturer. He would tell everybody that came to his house about the awful effects of drink, and he would boast about how strong and well he had become since he gave up touching the stuff. To demonstrate this, he would stand on his head and on his hands and he would turn cartwheels in the house, kicking over the umbrella stand, knocking down the bridge lamps, and ramming his elbows through the windows.
Then he would lie down on the floor, tired by his healthful exercise, and go to sleep. His wife was greatly distressed and his children were very frightened.
Moral: You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
Imagine a few years from now, U.S. supply
troops have just wrapped up a field exercise in Poland, showing
solidarity with the country in the face of saber-rattling from nearby Russia.
As the sun sets, GIs rest next to their trucks, knowing the Russian
18th Guards Motor Rifle Division is encamped just a few miles away.
The
soldiers hear a faint buzzing in the distance and see a dark cloud
crossing the horizon. Suddenly, a solitary scout drone swoops low over
the Americans—it’s seen them. Like a predator catching the scent of
prey, the cloud stops dead in its tracks, then rushes toward the
soldiers with astonishing speed. Following programming orders, each of
the 60 drones scans the ground below and picks its target, while AI
ensures no two drones aim for the same vehicle. The drones arm their
explosive payloads just as the first bursts of gunfire begin lancing out
from the American position.
“The first use of autonomous weapons
in war won’t be heralded with a giant fireball in the sky. It may just
look like an ordinary drone.”
Sometime around March 2020, this longstanding trope
of science fiction—autonomous attack drones eliminating human beings on
the futuristic battlefield—crossed over into science fact. That’s when,
during the Second Libyan Civil War, the interim Libyan government
attacked forces from the rival Haftar Affiliated Forces (HAF) with
Turkish-made Kargu-2 (“Hawk 2”) drones, marking the first reported time
autonomous hunter killer drones targeted human beings in a conflict,
according to a United Nations report.
Unmanned combat aerial vehicles,
loitering munitions, and the Kargu-2 “hunted down and remotely engaged”
HAF logistics convoys and retreating fighters, the UN report found. The
autonomous drones were programmed to attack targets “without requiring
data connectivity between the operator and munition,” meaning they
located and attacked HAF forces independent of any kind of pilot or
control scheme.
The Kargu-2 is a quadcopter drone developed
by STM, a Turkish defense contractor. The drone features sensors and an
electronic brain, and is designed to carry a weapons payload. In
marketing materials, STM explicitly says Kargu-2 is capable of carrying
out an autonomous attack.
Here’s how it works: The drone operator loads a set
of target coordinates into the Kargu-2’s software. The drone then takes
off and travels to the coordinates, searching for objects on the ground
that fit the profile of preferred targets. Once the drone identifies a
target, it swoops down on the target at high speed and detonates an
onboard explosive package, with an effect similar to that of a shotgun blast.
“The
first use of autonomous weapons in war won’t be heralded with a giant
fireball in the sky,” says Zachary Kallenborn, an official U.S. Army
“Mad Scientist” and national security consultant. “It may just look like
an ordinary drone. The event illustrates a key challenge in any attempt
to regulate or ban autonomous weapons: How can we be sure they were
even used?”
The Evolution of Military Drones
One major difference between a remotely controlled attack drone and an autonomous drone is the software, which might be difficult to obtain from scattered bits of plastic for forensic analysis.
The U.S. Army is working on autonomous drones, including the Bell Textron M5 medium robotic combat vehicle.
The M5 is an uncrewed, 10-ton tracked armored vehicle that looks like a
miniature tank and has a top speed of 40 miles per hour. It features a
30-millimeter XM813 chain gun and is designed to operate alone or as a
wingman to M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
The key difference between the Army’s drones and
the Kargu-2, however, is that the Army insists on a “human in the loop.”
The drone might search for targets autonomously, but it can only open
fire once a human operator gives permission. This allows the operator to
call off an attack if the drone has mistaken a civilian for a soldier.
Some events in the history of mankind, like the 1945 atomic bomb test
at the Alamogordo Bombing Range in New Mexico, are so profound, they
serve as a divider between one social, economic, or military era and
another. The events in Libya may similarly divide the time when humans
had full control of weapons and a time when machines make their own
decisions to kill.
Here on the east coast, this year's autumnal equinox (wiki) occurs on September 22 at 3:20 pm EDT, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. The equinox is the moment at which the sun appears to cross the celestial equator from north to south - or more simply, the first day of fall, with equal hours of light and darkness. In Latin, the word equinox is composed of two words meaning "equal" and "night."
I seem to remember that when I was a kid, the first day of each new season was always considered to be the 21st (of March for Spring, June for Summer, September for Autumn, and December for Winter). I guess it's more accurate now.
The 1869 version of Chambers' Book of Days has a post on the equinox (you may need to scroll down), including this interesting comment on the science of equinox-related weather:
As is well known, both the autumnal and vernal equinoxes are distinguished over the world by the storms which prevail at these seasons. The origin of such atmospheric commotions has never yet been very satisfactorily explained, but is sup-posed, as stated by Admiral Fitzroy, to arise from the united tidal action of the sun and moon upon the atmosphere; an action which at the time of the equinoxes is exerted with greater force than at any other period of the year.
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold....
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hands, I used to hold
Since you went away, the days grow long
And soon I'll hear ol' winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.
~Johnny Mercer, Autumn Leaves (see Nat King Cole singing this, below)
Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
~ Samuel Butler
Autumn wins you best by this, its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.
~ Robert Browning
Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.
~ Albert Camus
You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light.
~ Hemingway (A Movable Feast)
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
~ George Santayana
The teeming Autumn big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease.
~ William Shakespeare
It's not generally appreciated that perhaps the best-known of all works of baroque music, Le Quattro Stagioni ("The Four Seasons") (wiki) by Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi (ca. 1675-1741), was first published with four Italian poems - likely by Vivaldi himself - that describe the several scenarios represented in the music.
Below is Vivaldi's poem Autumn, and here's a performance of the third movement of "Autumn" in Venice's foggy Piazza San Marco:
Allegro
Celebra il Vilanel con balli e Canti Del felice raccolto il bel piacere E del liquor de Bacco accesi tanti Finiscono col Sonno il lor godere
The peasant celebrates with song and dance,
The harvest safely gathered in.
The cup of Bacchus flows freely,
And many find their relief in deep slumber.
Adagio molto
Fà ch' ogn' uno tralasci e balli e canti L' aria che temperata dà piacere, E la Staggion ch' invita tanti e tanti D' un dolcissimo Sonno al bel godere.
The singing and the dancing die away
As cooling breezes fan the pleasant air,
And the season invites each and all
To a sweet sleep, without a care.
Allegro
I cacciator alla nov'alba à caccia Con corni, Schioppi, e canni escono fuore Fugge la belua, e Seguono la traccia; Già Sbigottita, e lassa al gran rumore De' Schioppi e canni, ferita minaccia Languida di fuggir, mà oppressa muore.
The hunters emerge at dawn
With horns, shotguns, and dogs baying.
The quarry flees while they give chase.
Terrified by the dogs and wounded by the guns
The prey struggles on,
But harried, dies.
The two revolutions, I mean the annual revolutions of the declination and of the centre of the Earth, are not completely equal; that is the return of the declination to its original value is slightly ahead of the period of the centre. Hence it necessarily follows that the equinoxes and solstices seem to anticipate their timing, not because the sphere of the fixed stars moves to the east, but rather the equatorial circle moves to the west, being at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic in proportion to the declination of the axis of the terrestrial globe.
You learn something new every day, if you aren't careful. I was not aware of the Medieval trend of depicting Aristotle being ridden and whipped by a dominatrix named Phyllis. From JSTOR - go there to read the whole thing. More links below.
Alexander the Great (wiki), Aristotle’s (wiki) pupil, fell in love with a young woman named Phyllis. Aristotle, concerned that Phyllis was distracting Alexander from his kingly duties, cautioned him and advised him to spend less time with his love. Hurt, Phyllis decided to take her revenge. The next morning, she told Alexander to look out for her from the palace roof. She let down her hair, hiked up her skirts, and ran barefoot through the morning dew in the garden outside the window of Aristotle’s study. The philosopher looked up from his books to see a vision of beauty. Enchanted, he called her to him and begged her to be his.
“Certainly—on one condition,” Phyllis told the philosopher, and demanded that he put on saddle and bridle and give her a ride through the garden. Alexander, up on the battlements, was shocked to see his dignified old tutor with a bit in his mouth, while Phyllis brandished a whip over his back.
So, apparently there's a whole slew of art from over the last few hundred years depicting this story - I've picked a few favorites, but you can find more here. The first image below is not the clearest, but it's Leonardo DaVinci, for goodness sake.
HB1992, Murphy, takes away gun rights for a conviction of misdemeanor domestic violence. HB1992 was first killed by the committee this morning, but a little while later the vote was revisited and the bill squeaked out of committee on an 8 to 7 vote. HB1992 now heads to Finance. The bill had a substitute in committee this morning. The substitute restores gun rights after 3 years.
However, that doesn't actually restore a person's gun rights federally, as the bill must take away all civil rights and then restore all of them for the federal prohibition to be terminated. Worse, HB1992 expands what qualifies as domestic violence, beyond what the federal government uses. For these reasons, VCDL continues to STRONGLY OPPOSE HB1992.
Click here to tell your Senator that you still oppose HB1992, even with the substitute.
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HB2081, Levine, prohibits guns within 40 feet of polling places. The bill passed out of committee on an 8 to 6 vote and heads to the Senate Floor. VCDL STRONGLY OPPOSES HB2081.
HB2276, Simon, is a ban on homemade guns and 80% receivers. The bill was not heard today, but is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Judiciary Criminal Law subcommittee on Wednesday. This is a really bad bill that must be stopped. VCDL STRONGLY OPPOSES HB2276.
HB2298, Fariss, allows for the use of safer "firestick" breach-loaded propellant for muzzleloaders used in hunting. The bill was not heard today, but is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Judiciary committee 1/2 hour after adjournment of the Senate on Wednesday. VCDL STRONGLY SUPPORTS HB2298.
ACTION ITEM #2!
On Tuesday, February 16, SB1381, Ebbin, which bans guns at the Capitol and in state government buildings, is going to be heard in the House Public Safety Firearms subcommittee at 7 am. VCDL STRONGLY OPPOSES SB1381.
Tell your Delegate to OPPOSE SB1381 by clicking here.
Blind Father-to-Be Can’t See Ultrasound Image–so Friend Embroiders Scan for Him to Feel.
When Emma realized that Nathan felt he was missing out, she collaborated with a friend, Deb Fisher, to create a tactile embroidered ultrasound image so he could feel the baby’s shape.
“She said she had never embroidered before but would love to try and embroider all of our scans for Nathan to enable us to experience the joy of our baby boy growing together.”
“She said she was so happy for us both but sad that Nathan was unable to see our baby grow on our scan photos,” Emma recounted.
