A Rooten' Tooten'

Wednesday

Allow me.  I'd better explain that, it's a bit of a reach.  So, today is 02/10/2019 - or Day Two of October, pronounced "Too", and that's how today's title came about.  Aren't I clever?
     Okay, now that I've loaded up a pair of photographs ahead of typing this at work - today's bus journey now taking 80 minutes rather than 40 thanks to road-works although the killing rage has started to settle thanks for asking - which I mentioned yesterday, you can see some evidence of my assertion that Popular Mechanics may prove to be a fruitful source of material.  Check out the below -

And also -

     Let's look at the latter in a little more detail. 
     "Army could make body armour based on pearls and LEGO" - come on, how can you not be interested in a topic like that?  I will be clicking on that, believe me.  "Everything Happening at the Area 51 Raid Today" is obviously dated as that was back in September, and we all know how that went - 75 attendees out of three million is pretty pathetic.  "The Government Has Banned Flights Over Area 51" is hardly news, because it's not news, overflights have been banned for decades; face it, do you think the South Canadian Air Force would allow any nosey parker in a plane to sneak over and peek at all their top secret planes of the next generation that will make the F17 look like something Orville Wright dreamed up?*
     The particle beam stuff I mentioned yesterday.

     Now, motley, lets sit down with a pot of tea and some toasted crumpets!

Yum!

      Ah, remember the days when we routinely tormented and tortured the hapless motley?
     Now, on with the show!

You What?
Conrad is unsure exactly how he came upon a Youtube time-lapse video of a couple of nerdy types assembling the Apollo Lunar Lander, except he did.  Art?

The article in question

     If this thing looks complicated and fiddly, that's because it is.  The time lapse of Nerd Number Two whizzed by in mere seconds, yet in real time it took him 2 hours and fifteen minutes to complete.  This is a consequence of it having so many pieces.  If Art can put down his plate of coal -

CAUTION!  Only for nerds with patience
(Also, some people have too much time on their hands)

     As you can see, the level rating for this is "Expert", which I believe follows on from the "Creator" branding, and look how many parts it has - over 1,000 - which also explains the two hours-plus completion time.  And, it you dare to mention the word "hoax" I will send a dose of withering sarcasm down your wifi connection so strong it will uncurl the corkscrews in your cutlery drawer.
     Another question arises in Conrad's fetid mind: what do you do with this thing once you've completed it?  It's a fair size, horizontally and vertically.  Do you let it sit on a shelf amongst all your other Lego Creator stuff?  Because you'll need a lot of large shelves, considering the size of those Star Wars kits -

4,700 pieces and yours for £975

    
Right - NOW For The Polish Tank Destroyer!
Thanks to Tom (the ardent swain of Darling Daughter) about this one.  He initially thought it was the Finns who were plotting mass tank-destruction, then realised it was the Poles and pulled up a picture on his digital devil's device.  Art?

And it was this very picture

     The vehicle is a hybrid of Polish and British, the bang-kill-you-dead bit being the contribution Perfidious Albion made towards it; Javelin anti-tank missiles.  These things have a range of about 5 miles, and you can just let one loose in the general direction of the Ruffians enemy, because they can hunt remotely for tanks.  When the hapless hunk of heavy metal is spotted, the Javelin sneakily goes up and down in a parabolic arc, meaning it will come down vertically on the victim, on the horizontal armour which is always thinnest.  As you can see, the beast above mounts 24 missiles, meaning 24 destroyed tanks as the makers claim a 98% accuracy rate.

Tsar Putin is unhappy.  Bad Poles!  Naughty Poles!

     The article this came from gloatingly described how a couple of these mobile missile mounts could shred an entire Ruffian armoured regiment, and although they didn't add "Tee Hee!" at the end, you could tell that's what they were thinking**.

"Army could make body armour based on pearls and LEGO"
<tries to think of a thin pun involving swine, fails, frowns horribly and scares colleagues>
Okay, I did have a look at this PM article, and bless me, it is interesting. 
     Okay, normal body armour tends to be made of either steel plates, which are very heavy, or Kevlar, which is expensive and no lightweight, either.  Same with helmets.  To make a bulletproof helmet has remained a pipedream since the First Unpleasantness, since it would require metal so thick the wearer would need a neck-brace made out of scaffolding.  Art!  Put that plate of coal down!

The stuff itself

     The 'pearls' bit comes from mimicking the nacre that oysters form when creating pearls, as this stuff is both amazingly strong and lightweight, just the combination you want in body armour.  The 'Lego' bit comes from how the raw material of nacre, calcium carbonate - you might know it better as chalk - is assembled a la the plastic bricks, which is what creates the strength.
     It also has a certain degree of flexibility, which again is what you want in body armour; excessively stiff materials are more likely to fracture under impact and cause an even worse wound than without body armour.

As we remember from yesteryon and the Canuckistanians in Normandy

Finally -
I discovered the reason why my endurance test into work yesterday took so long; at the right moment I happened to be looking out of the window, whereas yesterday I was nose deep in either a Cryptic Crossword or a book.
     Roadworks.  I may be able to get a photograph tomorrow.
     So, roadworks.  A stretch of the A627 of about fifty yards length has been coned-off, creating a single-lane, which, thanks to the sheer volume of traffic into Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell, has creating a tailback miles long.  Hence the veins in my forehead throbbing dangerously.

<loud swearing>

*  Rhetorical question.  The answer is "No".
**  Tee hee!