Sturgeon

Moving humor threads to Open Discussion

Moving humor threads to Open Discussion.

Railguns are currently getting something like 8,000 ft/s MV. An aircraft might have a cruising altitude of 30,000 ft or more. Even if the projectile doesn't bleed velocity like a stuck hemophiliac pig (which it will), it will still take several seconds for a round to reach the altitude of its target, which means it isn't arriving de-facto instantly. This doesn't mean it's useless for air defense, or even less useful than other options, but it won't instantaneously laser planes out of the sky.

I got all but the Globemaster II.

Screw the rules, I have Admin powers!

Hmmm, Admin-approved TV shows... Buffy The Vampire Slayer is probably Whedon at his best; his later work seems a bit too over the top to really shine like Buffy does; while I and literally everyone else on the planet can appreciate Firefly, I'm not sure it could have gone for seven seasons like Buffy. But then, it never did get the chance. Buffy is a bit uneven, but at its best, it's nothing short of classic. Stargate SG-1 is one of those shows that you either are a fan of or aren't. Some people might watch the first season and just not make it; I feel the first season is terrible, but with just enough camp to be endearing like your cousin with the mental condition. After the first season, it becomes a lot more self-aware, and while it still waffles into "bad" territory, they become less frequent as time goes on, while building a compelling universe and really likeable characters and writing that I can't help but love a little. And, of course, nobody makes fun of themselves quite like the writers of Stargate SG-1. Spinoff Atlantis is what SG-1 narrowly avoided being; it is a soulless interpretation of the same, though it came close to being redeemed through the well-thought-out villains. Other spinoff Universe is actually really good, but it's obvious why SG-1 fans hated it; it's a sort of BSG-ified Stargate. I definitely liked it, though, and even though the prospect of its return dwindles, I still hope it comes back. Planetes is an anime (oh god please no god please god no god no no god god!) that has a mixed level of scientific accuracy. The orbital mechanics are a little off, but they're better than most space-oriented shows. Some (collimatrix and my dad) may find this totally ruins the show for them. They're wrong, oh well. Planetes' biggest strength is its character development; it's a show with great writing behind its characters, who undergo an excellent level of development. Expounding on this would give spoilers, so I won't. If Planetes has an overarching moral, it's "to excel without limits". Some people simply won't be able to watch this because it was animated in Japan; OK, fine, I guess. I grew up watching anime, which had the twin effects of making it both perfectly bearable to me and unremarkable; I assign neither penalties nor handicaps to something just because it's "anime". Oh, and don't watch the dub. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfv3BMcwpdY Psycho-Pass is another anime (oh god please no god please god no god no no god god!), though it's one of the few I'd recommend even to people who hate anime. If you don't like Psycho-Pass you will probably never like any anime, ever. This show is a brilliantly animated, brilliantly written masterpiece. If you do not like it after the first episode, put it down, video entertainment is probably not for you. This show is, in my completely unrepentant opinion, the best cyberpunk work yet made, of any kind or medium, by a wide margin. The setting is that of a heavily isolated country a la North Korea, however unlike North Korea the people live plentiful lives under a totalitarian technocracy that, by and large, vastly improves the standards of living for the majority of citizens within it. One of the reasons for this is (and the primary focus of the show) the enforcement of law through the use of "psycho passes", data on the subjects of the regime showing their psychological condition. This is heavily automated; law enforcement officers are equipped with weapons called "Dominators" that are at once a ridiculously advanced technological marvel and a bureaucratic leash. Dominators, when pointed at a subject, can determine the subject's psycho pass, and have both lethal and non-lethal modes of fire. They are unwieldy, slow to operate, and wholly unsuited to classic law enforcement, which officers still try to practice despite the radical methodology and technology of the government they serve. The conflict in the story is best explained by the trailer, I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWF_-XqOsAc As always with anime, don't watch the dub.

That is a really cool picture, Unstart!

Oh, I get paid to write, I just don't get paid to make up stuff like Kratman does.

You would think they would be, but the document actually proves they make little difference. As long as your projectile is supersonic, it doesn't really matter.

And Tony Williams is still wrong about rifle suppression.

Sounds like you answered your own question.

Well, I don't get paid to write fiction, so he's better than me.

From what I can tell, he's a great writer, he was just very lazy and utilizing poor information with those posts. But, I got his service record wrong, because I was going off what Wikipedia said (they got it wrong, too). Oh well.

This Tom Kratman? http://196800revolutionsperminute.blogspot.com/2014/05/are-us-soldiers-dying-from-inadequate.html?m=1

Welcome, Ren!

Way ahead of you.

When it came to rifles, the US really was stuck in the past. However, they would leapfrog everybody later in the 1960s.

That's a colli question, though I could probably look it up if I weren't busy at the moment.

The production numbers for the MP-44 are not the problem I have with giving it the title of "first successful assault rifle", it's the ammunition and magazine production. It was pretty rare that enough ammunition and magazines reached the soldiers on the front lines to fully realize the concept in action. Collimatrix has the book on this, and I welcome his contribution in clarifying this statement of mine. Having said that, the MP-44 clearly did crack the code of mass production of the rifles themselves (though by today's standards its stamping operations are maddeningly complex, it was still cheap for the period). Strictly speaking, it may not have been the first assault rifle design built around expeditious mass production, but it was the first to actually achieve the numbers. I haven't written anything on this exact subject yet, but I do consider advanced mass production techniques to be a key ingredient in the assault rifle concept. The ideal assault rifle not only marries the range and striking power of the bolt-action rifle with the automatic fire mode and handiness of the submachine gun, it also strikes a new balance between being sophisticated enough to be capable yet lightweight weapon like the bolt action rifle and being cheap and quick to produce with a minimum of man-hours like a submachine gun. In this, the MP-44 is definitely a success. So between these two considerations, can we call the MP-44 successful? Well, I think yes and no. It was never going to be the war-winning tool some feel it could have been; there simply wasn't the support for it. However, as a byproduct of the Nazi regime, it absolutely paved the way for Eastern and Anglo-Belgian developments in the area, though the Americans would reject the rifle as being nothing more than a glorified submachine gun.

Larry's a gun guy, which is uncommon among his kind. So far as I know, he doesn't say anything that's blatantly wrong in the video, but he's definitely playing the gun up. That's not the producers or anything, either; Larry is a huge MP-44 fanboy (two of them crossed are used in his company's logo). So while Larry and I would definitely find us having a cordial disagreement on the MP-44 if we ever met, that's neither uncommon among gun people, nor is it something that impugns his character in my eyes.

A classic - Larry Vickers adorably 'booing out over the MP-44:

The best actors remain to this day classically-trained stage actors, so you're absolutely right, Don.

Brad Pitt is very capable, but he's been typecast too much.

That robot is all "you want chocolate human, don't you? You cannot have chocolate, because you are paralyzed, hahahahah!"

After my endless research binge, I had to take a little break to have some fun, so I read Larry Correia's Monster Hunter Nemesis. Larry's one of those writers who are rather good, but that put themselves in a box. His box is by-the-numbers action/fantasy. Oh it's fun as hell to read, sure, but I know he's capable of a bit more.