JanSolo

So you're saying there's a 'Gap' in missile technology between the US and China? A 'Missile Gap', perhaps? Perhaps we should have a good old-fashioned arms-race to sort it all out?

I expect what happened was that they trained their NNs for improved detection in one area but unknowingly reduced it in another. Perhaps now it can detect tricycles 99% but road barriers went down to only 30%. Having worked with NNs it's very common to see gains in one domain which come at a cost of reduced performance in another.

The first time the US has to deal with Anti-Ship cruise-missiles might be a bad day for them.

Recall that the US succeeded in WW1 and WW2 by out-producing their opponents. They simply built more guns and tanks and munitions than everyone else. US munitions were lower quality than what was produced in Europe, but they were cheaper and available in large numbers. That's what mattered.

However, that's a strategy that won't work against China. The Chinese are the undisputed kings of building things fast and cheap. They would out-produce the US easily AND they have a much larger population to conscript into their armies.

US military chiefs must know that a land-war against China has almost no chance of success. China is too big and their army too numerous.

So if the war were to go badly (which it almost certainly would) they would be likely to consider the nuclear option... and once we go there, there's no going back. China would retaliate; Russia would likely get involved; article 5 would be invoked.... game over.

With the advent of anti-ship cruise missiles, carriers have lost the decisive edge that they had during WW2. It seems like few nations are willing to bear the development and maintenance costs of modern carriers. Yet the US continues to build carriers as if they were at war! Furthermore, there is a huge uproar (along with legal challenges!) whenever anyone dares to suggest even slowing down the rate of carrier deployment. Why is the US so set on a policy that every other developed nation has eschewed? It makes no sense to me.

The waveguide was rotatable so that sound direction could be roughly determined. This was done by slowly turning the guide until the sound was at its loudest and then reading off the angle.

SpaceX has launched many Orbital missions.

Blue Origin has launched none.

SpaceX has two functional, tested, orbital spacecraft in production.

Blue Origin has a sub-orbital pod with goldfishbowl windows that's not quite ready yet.

SpaceX has successfully partnered with NASA for commercial cargo missions to the ISS.

Blue Origin has not.

SpaceX has landed more than a dozen rockets post-flight.

Blue Origin has landed < 10 sub-orbital rockets.

SpaceX has designs for rockets and spacecraft that might plausibly target inter-planetary travel.

Blue Origin has not gotten to orbit yet.

Don't get me wrong; I want Blue Origin to succeed. However, the slope of their progress graph has been much shallower than SpaceXs. I don't see them ever catching or overtaking SpaceX unless something drastically unforseen happens.

Perhaps they feel that a little espionage is worth it to get 500000 electric cars a year onto Chinese roads?

There's a huge demand for non-polluting vehicles in China, so expect other automakers to begin looking at similar factories in that country.

However, my head tells me that no amount of tweaking or tuning will change the fundamental problem with Concorde. The root problem with this aircraft is that people prefer cheaper flights over faster flights.

The real success that we can take from the Concorde program was that some of the technology found its way into the A300 program and its derivative, the A320.

Cheap, reliable aircraft are what people want. Fast, expensive ones are cool, but not really economic.

A couple of points of interest:

1. The Crew Capsule pitched around quite a lot after it left the booster. This would have been quite 'exciting' for any passengers but was easily survivable. SpaceX had a similar problem in their Dragon LES test a while back. Indeed, the BO Capsule looked much more stable under parachutes than the Dragon did.

2. The commentators mentioned that the booster had flown and landed 5 times and would be retired to a museum. 5 times!? There was so little drama in the launch and landing that I expect they could probably launch it another 5 times with few problems. This is what a reliable system looks like. Good job!

3. The gantry tower at the West Texas launch site had what looked like walkways for accessing the Crew capsule. Does that mean crewed tests are imminent? Very exciting!

This is a fantastic result for Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin team; I'm hoping that their new orbital booster is as reliable. If it is, SpaceX and ULA will have some real domestic competition. At last!

Also, many of the properties bought by immigrants are actually owned by syndicates who are based in Canada and therefore do not have to pay the tax.

I'd certainly reconsider my Kaspersky license if I had one.

It also discounts some of the nuttier theories such as the plane landing in Russia or Afghanistan.

As soon as I saw it, I had a great idea for a game. It's pretty simple too... Imagine a sort of hybrid of Angry Birds and Defender of the Crown (https://youtu.be/Af0vFi4sSzw?t=272). Where you have to build up your castle and then knock down your opponents.

You already have pretty good walls, rocks, brickwork, etc. So you could use that for the construction phase. Then you'd need to add a variety of weapons; Ballistas, Trebuchets, Cannon, etc. Each one would destroy a few blocks in a certain pattern. Maybe you can unlock/upgrade weapons as you proceed. You'd also need some kind of physics to detect when blocks are unsupported and allow them to fall & destroy themselves.

I'm envisioning a simple single player mode where you take it in turns defending and attacking castles and then an MP mode where 2 or more players can defend and attack each other. You'd need some kind of replication system to report which blocks are created or destroyed during the game, but that shouldn't be too hard for you.

Let me know if you like my idea.

Thanks

Jan.