We Are Living In The Future Part Umpteen

I Keep Saying This Because It's True

Yes, we are going to be harping on about drones again in this Intro, and other varieties of sentient ordnance, because there is a truism we have examined here on the blog: warfare drives technological development.  Take the development of the cavity magnetron during the Second Unpleasantness, a technological quantum leap of crucial importance.  Art!

     Sorry but a cavity magnetron is dullsville exemplified to look at.  You don't believe me?  Challenge accepted!  Art?

     ANYWAY if we can continue?  We can?  So kind!  <mutters darkly and looks longingly at the Remote Nuclear Tormentor>.

     So!  You ought to remember the recent Intro we did about the British initiative to create sound-ranging equipment during the First Unpleasantness, which enabled them to locate Teuton artillery with uncanny accuracy, to within 25 PROUD IMPERIAL yards.   Well, who else of late is trying to locate hostile enemy ordnance trespassing upon it's territory?  None other than Ukraine.  Art!

     A Ruffian 'Geran' drone, which is a story of technological development in itself.  The original version, imported from Iran, had a lawnmower engine and retailed at about $20,000.  These latest ones sporting a jet turbine, armour-plating, electronic counter-measures and Starlink - up until recently - come in at more like $100.000 per unit.  

     ANYWAY one of the methods of dealing with these drones is with 'Mobile Fire Groups', a posh way of saying a bunch of blokes and babusyas in a 4x4 mounting a heavy machine gun, paired with another mounting a searchlight for night-time operations.  The problem is with predicting where the Gerans are going to be flying, as the orcs deliberately have them fly all over the place before deciding on a target.  Art!

     Cool camo scheme.  Serhei here is taking on a drone with a pair of Maxim machine guns that are at least 70 years old, and he SHOOTS IT DOWN! <ahem>.

     Where were we?  O yes.  Well, according to one Ukrainian - I used to use the slang 'Uke' a couple of years ago but abandoned it as it sounds less then complimentary - has stated that they are now using nets of microphones positioned across tens or hundreds of kilometres of terrain, which pick up the sonic profile of Geran drones as they enter Ukrainian territory, allowing an extremely accurate prediction path to be plotted*.  This permits Serhei and his twin antiques to be deployed 25 miles - sorry couldn't resist sticking a PROUD IMPERIAL measure in there - ahead of the drones.  Art!

     Something to <ahem>brag about.  Conrad wonders if the plotters and planners in Kyiv were aware of Sir L?

     ANYWAY we continue with the ground component of 'drones', which are more correctly dubbed 'Unmanned Ground Vehicles' and we can only shudder in horror when some feminist sues for gender bias and we end up with 'Unpersoned Ground Horizontally-Mobile Technological Devices'.  Unsure if 'Unpersoned' should have one 'n' or two.  

     What am I wittering on about?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

     This is one of the necessary steps to be undertaken when attempting to sow an Ukrainian field.  An UGV converted from a tractor has to flail the field first, in a scene familiar to all Second Unpleasantness buffs who are up on the Sherman Crab.  Note that there is nobody in the cab, far too dangerous!  Art!

     There are already de-mining vehicles that we have featured here on BOOJUM! except they probably cost a quantum leap above a re-purposed tractor and would take 6 months to deliver.  

     The counter to the above is that UGVs could very well sow the seeds or plant the roots of whatever crop is being dealt with, because we already have drones capable of harvesting crops.  One suspects that it would only require a bit more horsepower to do the first step.  Watch this space in the next 3 months!

     Art!

     This is the Ruffian refinery at Tuapse, which is emitting sufficient smoke to be seen from orbit, after the Uke - Ukrainians gave it an absolute pasting with drones.  There's a twist here - Art!

     This is from a Tweet posted by -

     Here we see the full fuel tanks depicted in green, those with less than complete content as amber, and the empty as red.  Conrad presumes that, prior to this, the tanks were assessed thanks to satellite imagery or Atesh partisan info, which might be out of date or completely incorrect.  This is not going to go down well in Mordorvia.

     I have more to come on this, which I bet you can hardly wait for.

You What? Part Umpteen

The Youtube algorithm seems to delight in hurling recommendations at me to do with oscilloscopes, for reasons which remain obscure to me.  I don't think liking Hawkwind means you want to buy into their 1971 iteration where they were us

     ANYWAY we have another bizarre entry here.  Art!

     Ah yes.  'Edgecore'.  

     Wait, what?  I am used to '-core' being used to describe a music genre.  Whom or what is this, and why is the internet trying to pimp it on my Youtube channel?  No way am I going to click on that link.  There are not even puny humans to give it scale.

A Premonition Of Demolition

Together, dear audience and gentle readers, we know enough to realise that a demolition set up to be undercut is frequently liable to 'walk' in a different direction, thanks to the edges of the undercut section collapsing in an unwanted and unexpectedly rapid style.  Art!

     Pay attention to the excavator and ground observer at Ground Zero, whom are watching the demolition take place, and are DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to the collapse zone.  They seem totally convinced that this gigantic chimney is going to fall in the direction they want it to, rather than the direction it wants to.  Art!

     The collapse begins, and the puny humans start to bug out as it's obvious the collapse isn't where it ought to be.  Art!

     You can probably see where this is going.  At 90º from the original this is not going to end happily.  Art!

     Very Freudian and expensive.  

     I apologise for not having any more details about this event <hangs head in shame>.

South Canadian Epicurean Acme

As you should surely know by now, Conrad has been following the Romanian wag 'Daractenus' on Twitter, whom has been posting an hilarious satirical review of South Canadian foodstuffs that are forbidden in the EU, thanks to things like food standards, safety and not wanting to ingest paint components.  Art!

     It seems that Skittles had to amend their recipe in order to be allowed to vend it in Europe, because titanium  dioxide is not a condiment you want or need on a daily basis.  Your Humble Scribe remembers reading the Ingredients list on a bag of Skittles he has bought, and the one ingredient that lingers is 'Carnauba Wax'.  The effing things do taste delicious, though.  Even if they do coat your teeth.

About Those Worst Films Ever

This is rather different as it focusses on recent Film Flops, rather than the ones we here at BOOJUM! have being looking at over the past 80 years.  These ones are a whole lot more contemporary, which is really a step forward, honest.  Art!

     One of the things against is that I've never heard of it, either as good, bad or indifferent.  The plot seems to be a riff on 'The Purge', where a broadcast signal is about to make crime impossible to commit, so a band of anarchic rebels plot to carry out a crime while it's still a manageable feat.  An intriguing premise ruined by bad delivery, 'twould seem.

Finally -

Ambrose, see us out!

"Fashion, n: A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey."

*  See the story of 

All Hail Robert K. Merton!

If You're Not Familiar With Him

Then you're in good company.  He was a South Canadian sociologist, whom in 1936 came up with 'The Law Of Unintended Consequences', which explicates that complex situations always produce unexpected or unwanted results, thanks to lots of moving parts having to work in close conjunction.  Imagine, if you will, having to take apart a Rolex watch and then re-assemble it, whilst wearing an eye-patch and after having sunk eight pints of Special Brew.  Art!

And - against the clock.

     Thus Part One of our Intro.  Here we detail about the 'r/slash' Youtube channel and their Malicious Compliance story, related by REMOte Medical Technician, hereafter REMO.  He was a - you may be ahead of me here - medical technician employed on oil rigs drilling in the Gulf Of Mexico, and we've covered EMTs working in the oil industry before.  To cover insurance the rig needs to have a properly-licenced EMT on station at all times, or they CANNOT continue drilling operations, being at risk of being busted and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Art!

     REMO lived in Panama City Beach, Florida, and had been picked upon several times in the past to have random drug tests taken, as employers don't like their employees hoovering up drugs like Keith Moon.  This had not been a problem, since he'd been at his work location.  Art!

Panama City Beach

     Until now. At 16:00 Friday afternoon, chilling by the pool after 2 weeks spent in the Gulf, REMO got a call saying that he had to go 'Pee In A Cup' in order to pass his drug testing.  Within 24 hours.

     The spirit of Robert K. Merton is watching o'er you, REMO.

     The thing is, REMO had to travel to either Jacksonville in Atlanta or New Orleans, there were no other locations for PIAC.  Given the size of South Canada, this creates a problem.  Art!

That's Panama Beach to New Orleans

     After consulting with 'friends' whom are more like conspirators and looking to get as much as they can from the gravy train, REMO ended up driving to the Nola neighbourhood in New Orleans - see above - with said friends, drank, danced and ate the night away and then booked into the most expensive hotel they could find.  They had no choice as their company had such a limited slate of geographical venues for validification.  Art!

Nola looking very, very expensive

     Then came the PIAC.  You know, the whole reason for the trip, and Robert Merton watching over all.

     REMO then breaks down the entire audit list, expense by expense.

"800 miles travel expense $440

Friday meal Nola $50

French Quarter nightly $300

Breakfast, lunch and dinner $150

Another night in the French Quarter $350

Breakfast $50

16 hours of overtime billed at $40 per hour."

     The total came to $1,948.  

     That is, to be clear, nearly $2,000 to complete a simple expression in a cup.  

     REMO clarified that they did, indeed, get paid what they had claimed in their deposition, as it would have presumably have cost more to dispute it than pay out.  They also advised that the company increased the number of sites that could assess cases, in order to avoid another such blowout, and in their remaining 7 years with the business they were never again requested to PIAC.  Funny, that.

     Here's another example of Mister Merton's metric, what you might call 'Guagamole And Rage'.  The narrator, whom we will call HEavily Pregnant, HEP hereafter, was the service manager at a Mexican grill franchise, which she coyly doesn't name.  Lawsuits and all that.  Art!

     Enter Bitchy ENtitled Toerag, hereafter BENT, leading 15 young girls in through the side door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, well before the doors actually opened.  Adult illiteracy is such a wicked thing, isn't it?  BENT is known and reviled in the grill for her awful behaviour.

     ANYWAY, BENT throws her credit card at HEP and tells the girls they can order anything they want, shouts the same at HEP when she queries this, then goes and sits down to goggle at her phone.

     When the bill arrives, it's for $250, a sum BENT clearly did not expect as she goes ballistic ballistic, screaming that she wants a refund.  HEP says no, as the girls have finished eating all their eats by this time.  An increasingly lengthy queue watches with interest as BENT, driven insane with a combination of rage and entitlement, pushes HEP hard.  Hard enough to fell her, had one of her staff not caught her.  Art!

     Merton's metric kicks in here, because this counts as aggravated assault due to HEP being preggers.  Two on-duty police officers in the queue immediately cuff BENT and arrest her, meaning the 15 girls parents had to come and collect their offspring.  She was found guilty and given two years probation, and, one assumes, barred from that establishment in perpetuum, which is another new word with a double syllable you never knew about.

More Gentle Shoeing

King Piggy posted a video clip on Truth Social of Frank Sinatra singing 'My Way', probably intending that people pay attention to the line 'I did it my way', as with him it's all about a hymn to him him him.  Instead a lot of people paid attention to the 'The end is near' line whilst crossing their fingers and making a wish.  ANYWAY AGAIN Art!

     Jake Broe analysed this well, saying that the Iranian regime is full of religious fanatics who are eager for martyrdom, and whom thus don't care if BOOH threatens to kill them.  Trump's painful inability to read anything not in a size 16 font with big pictures and short words also comes into play here.  Adult illiteracy is such a wicked thing, isn't it?  Art!

Your Hair Helmet's looking weak there, Donold

Progress Report

Just to keep you informed, I am now at Page 542 of 'Cassino '44' and the date is late May 1944.  The Teuton positions at Cassino have finally been taken, stormed by the Poles of the 2nd Polish Corps, who suffered almost 4,000 casualties doing so.  Another example of Merton's metric: Poles fighting Teutons in Italy alongside the British, which nobody could have predicted in September of 1939.  Art!

Polish war cemetery at Monte Cassino

Have You Ever

Bought a loaf, put it in your shopping bag and then piled another heavier item on top of it, thus crushing it out of shape?  I have done this often enough to be wary of it now.  So, let us have another clip from 'Be Amazed' and their 'When Building Demolitions Go Horribly Wrong'.  Art!

     An impressively tall structure.  Which way will it fall, as I can't see any kind of cable or cutaway to predispose it?  There is an excavator digging away at the base in a completely different direction.

     Ooops, it shears off near the base, completely unexpectedly and not at all planned for.  Art!

     Ooops again.  Scratch one van.  This probably took place in Mordorvia, as that's a 'Bukhanka' van, more commonly known as a 'Loaf'.  Now you understand the majestic humour of this item's opening paragraph.

Further Progress

I have gone into the 3-disk 'Black Hawk Down' that I got months ago, and reported back to you about it.  What I didn't notice is how old it is - from 2004, for a film that came out in 2001 and which detailed events from 1993.  Art!

     I've now started watching one of the Extras: the History Channel's 90 minute documentary about the real events of that day.  One has to give props to author Mark Bowden, who went to Somalia to research what happened from the Somali side, when South Canadians were liable to be shot on sound.

Finally -

Going out with a Biercism.

"Rude, adj: Reminding a lady of the good times you had forty years ago."

Sunday's Synopses

Which Is The Correct Plural Of 'Synopsis'

There's your grammar lesson for today.  Okay, time for a reprise of the cherry trees in blossom along Tandle Hill Road today, as I was taking Edna for trotties.  Art!

     The only problem with it being a nice afternoon was that the world and his wife were walking their woofers, so a bit of strategic pacing and pavement-swapping was needed.

     Enough domestic drivel!  On with the links.

2025

BOOJUM!: Creating Drama Out Of A Crisis

2024

BOOJUM!: THROW THE MONEY INTO THE VOLCANO!

2023

BOOJUM!: European Space Agency Threatens Conrad

2022

BOOJUM!: ONE TRILLION LIONS VERSUS THE SUN!

2021

BOOJUM!: T.I.E. Fighter

2020

BOOJUM!: How Oarful

2019

BOOJUM!: Charles Dickens: Criminal Mastermind!

2018

BOOJUM!: By The Spitting Devil's Cabbage!

2017

BOOJUM!: Hark, Hark - It's About The Shark

2016

BOOJUM!: Domestic Diversions

2015

BOOJUM!: Hark Hark - It's Arthur C. Clarke!

2014

BOOJUM!: Namaste, India And Hi!, Oz

If I Were To Say 'Turning Point'

You'd Possibly Get What I Meant

But not probably, for, as you should surely know by now, Conrad's mind works in mysterious ways, even unto himself.  For example, where did 'Artie' and 'Gardenia' in that recent epic scrivel nonsense tale come from?  Who knows.  Especially not me.  

     ANYWAY what I want to look at here is a policy executed - apt word! - by that staple of BOOJUM! King Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus.  A name that trips off the tongue.  Art!

Probably not the tongue in question

     Ol' Mithy, you recall, was paranoid about being assassinated via poison, so he took a daily cocktail of poison in gradually-increasing doses, thus acquiring immunity.  At least according to legend.  Conrad thinks this a rather dicey process and doesn't recommend it.

     ANYWAY the turning point for Ol' Mithy came when he lost his third war against Rome, being decisively defeated by Pompey in 63 BC.  You can't call him a quitter!  Art?

     Being a bit spiteful and petty - the Donold Trump of his day? - Mithy rounded up all his oracles, diviners and soothsayers for a big celebration victory party -

     No, I was lying.  They had all advised him that going to war against Rome was a wonderful idea, that he would win bigly, etcetera, so he had them all killed for being completely wrong.  Hmmm.  You'd think, as, you know, oracles, they would have seen that coming.  Maybe an off day?

     Ol' Mithy then, allegedly, tried to commit self-delete with poison, only for his long-acquired tolerance to spoil his plan, resulting in a request for his bodyguard to do him in with a sword.  Note to readers: you do not acquire tolerance to a foot of forged steel in your gizzard.  Art!

                                                      

     This is another turning point.  Here you see the destruction wrought inside the 'Detsky Mir' shopping mall in Barad-Duh, which the Kremlin instantly insisted was due to a helium cylinder depressurising.  It took place in August 2026.  What happened is that the head of the FSB's Fifth Service, Alexei Titov - no pictures of him extant I'm afraid - went to meet the widow of a former subordinate, who was going to give him a 'present'.  Or, in reality, a bomb.  The explosion un-alived her and severed Titov's legs.  He survived long enough to get taken to hospital and put into a coma, with no updates eight months later, and it's quite possible he died and the Mordorvian authorities don't want to admit it.

     Why do I mention this?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Titov was the head of the Fifth Services Analytical Branch.  He escaped the purge of April 2022, when Putin sacked or imprisoned 150 FSB members in an attempt to shift the blame for 'Kyiv in three days' from him and onto them.  Art!

Putin with noodles on his ears*

     So, it would have been Titov's job to provide intelligence information on former Soviet countries, such as Ukraine, or the Baltics, or the Caucasus.  How far wide of the mark his info was is exemplified in Ruffian officers taking dress uniforms along on the invasion, all ready for their upcoming victory parade in Kyiv.  Art!

     This is General Vladimir Alekseyev, Deputy Head of the GRU, Ruffian Military Intelligence, whose directorate in May of 2022 was tasked with carrying out the work previously done by the FSB.  He was shot and seriously wounded in February 2026, by an assassin who knew exactly where and when he would be.

     The consensus amongst pundits is that the FSB officers who survived the April 2022 purge are now being gotten rid of, since, you know, they got things completely wrong.  It's noted that investigations into both assassination attempts were rapidly closed down, because the truth might come out.  Art!

     This quaint South Canadian phenomenon known as a 'Mega-church' is where King Piggy appeared at a rally on Friday 17th April.  It holds up to 4,500 people and DJ Tango only got 3,000 attending.  Sorry, no photos of the crowds, probably because the turnout was so disappointing.  Who is advising The Nodfather to stage these events?  Art!

     This is an actual Turning Point event, the organisation founded by that loathsome political reptile Charlie Kirk, and appearing on stage is Judge Death Vance, who kills literally and metaphorically if he shakes your hand.  This is the kind of shot that the White House will put out as proof of a well-attended event, pats on the back all round.

     HOWEVER - a word you surely knew was coming - 'Jake Broe' on his Youtube channel posted a video of someone attending the FREE rally and it's a lot less flattering to Just Dismal.  Art!

     At most, there's a couple of hundred people there.  Again, who is advising the charisma black hole to attend events like this?  One suspects there are going to be people 'let go' for embarrassing Donnie and Dismal.  Which is better than getting blown up or stabbed, but still not great.  Art!

His pants are, in fact, on fire.  Atomic-powered diaper malfunction.

Rock And Rolling

Another brief clip from 'Be Amazed's 'When Building Demolition Goes Horribly Wrong' and you'll see what that title refers to.  This was a flour factory demolition in Cankiri, Turkey.  Art!

     As is plainly visible, the structure has been extensively undercut before explosive charges were detonated.  The idea was to collapse it into it's own footprint.  Instead - Art!

     Given that I've only ever seen demolitions, not taken part in any, I could still have guessed this was going to happen.  However - ah, that word again! - when this factory was constructed in the Twenties, they built to last.  Rather than shatter after falling - Art!

     It stays intact and begins to roll.  Right towards a residential building.  Art!

  
     It stopped with inches to spare.  Nobody ended up injured, although once again some onlookers may have needed fresh underwear.

The Biter Bit

As you should surely know by now, one of Conrad's particular failings is being altogether too fond of Malicious Compliance or Pro Revenge stories on Youtube.  I ought to ration myself in order to stop squandering hours at a time.

     One of the staples of these stories is the Wicked Employer Firing An Employee and learning a very hard lesson about wage theft, unpaid overtime or tax avoidance, often all three at once.  Art!

     Here is a Comment from 'tonychan8558' showing the other side of the coin.

Last story: Small company with 9 employees. My former boss fired a woman after she told him she was pregnant. But unlike OP, she was useless at her job. Once, she sat at her computer for three hours, then asked my former boss how to print. She printed out a picture she had drawn on Paint over the past three hours. That was just the start. My boss knew she was trouble, so started documenting everything. She took him to court, where he won handsomely. Turned out she tried to get maternity pay from every company she worked at, she wasn't even pregnant! A few years later, I joined the company and boss told me this story. Two years later, our marketing assistant became pregnant and old boss made sure every one of her needs were catered for: new chair, paid time off to visit doctor, getting her lunch delivered, waiting on her hand and foot, the whole nine. She was very good at her job, and old boss treated her accordingly

    'The whole nine' isn't a typo, it's short for 'The whole nine yards', meaning absolutely everything, and is an item in it's own right.  Art!

Boosting Bakhmut's Booze

One of the pundits I watch on Youtube is 'Paul Warburg', who lives in Utah and does regular analyses of the war in Ukraine and how it affects Ruffia.  One of his sponsors is - see below.  Art!

     Artwinery.  They are retailing bottles of wine that were snatched from the cellars of Bakhmut before the orcs conquered it, and once they're gone, they're gone, there will never be more of them.  They aren't cheap but if you want a bottle of wine that has a story attached to it as well as being unique, check them out.

Finally -

Going out on a Biercism.

"Russian, n: A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul.  A Tartar Emetic."

*  Ruffian saying 'Do you think I've got noodles on my ears?' meaning 'Do you think I'm stupid?'