Experience can be a valuable teacher and the Army leverages their experience. They have a significant incentive. The Middle East wars are no exception. John Spencer says The Most Effective Weapon On The Modern Battlefield Is Concrete and explains some of the lessons learned. It’s about modern fort building with some new ideas for population control and […]
‘Tis the season: range grass is drying out and fires are a concern. The latest fad is to blame such fires on those out target shooting. To support this, there is a Forest Service study of ignition by rifle bullets. It is interesting and has data and theory worth considering. Careful reading also provides insight […]
Luboš Motl takes off on Nautilus’ disillusioned ex-physicist. “Bob Henderson wrote an autobiography for Nautil.Us” and that provided the ammunition for a rant on Life’s Journey that any college freshman with ambition should read carefully. This is a sketch of the “path towards the deep laws of the Universe” that I already had in mind […]
Chronic unemployment and a life that degrades from something to nothing is a tragedy that is individual and social. It can be top down, as is being shown right now in Venezuela or it can be bottom up as seen in a series of personal essays in Vox Trending Topics. In thinking about these experiences, […]
Two books on the web to get you up to speed. “Text-Book of Seamanship, 1891, is an updated age of sail textbook at the beginning of the true transition of warships from sail to steam power.” It is provided by the Historic Naval Ships Association. The other is provided by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. […]
The post is New Battery Charging Solutions for Li-ion Cells but it features an interesting table of battery parameters by battery type of a sort seldom seen. The parameters include such things as cycle life and energy density by both volume and weight. The battery types include all common ones from lead acid to lithium […]
Luboš Motl takes off on one of the computer scares: BadBIOS v2.0: contracting HIV from your digital camera “The people’s large holes in the knowledge and their gullibility is a much greater threat for the health of the mankind and the civilization than over 99% of the “declared threats” we are hearing about these days. […]
He says that the AR-15 is more than a gun, it’s a gadget — and that is why it is so popular. “fringe groups don’t adequately explain the roughly 5 million “black rifles” (as fans of the gun tend to call it) that are now in the hands of the public. No, the real secret […]
An old Perry Mason show, the Case of the Bogus Books (first aired 9-27-62), has a murder caused by natural gas or methane. It seems the criminal turned off the gas to kill the pilot light and then turned the gas on again so it would kill the occupant of the room as gas from […]
The FCC now requires careful consideration of exposure to electromagnetic fields by radio amateurs. The cell phone radiation fears come and go. Harriet Hall has a rundown on the Nonsense about the Health Effects of Electromagnetic Radiation citing Helke Ferrie and “dirty electricity.” “I could go on to deconstruct every paragraph of Ferrie’s article, but […]