No, This Is Nothing To Do With IBM
Nor HAL, and sadly nor is it to do with Ice Cream Breakfast Man <a minute's silence please>.
No, what today's Intro is about are the Big Bang Bombs, as we have tastelessly christened them here at the blog: Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles. These are the monsters that sit in massively-reinforced concrete silos, hopefully to endlessly sit there. Art!
This is a scene from the 1983 film "War Games" (ignore the rubbish remake) and is where one of the two missileers in the command capsule refuses to turn the key in order to enable launch. Subscribers to Jake Broe's Youtube channel, in his 'Ask Me Anything' request, asked if this was feasible, and would be ever have done this in real life?
The short answer is 'No' because dates are important here. JB explained that in the late Eighties and into the Nineties, personal sidearms were withdrawn from service for the missile crews. They had never been needed and as far as JB was concerned, it was one less item to bother about. Art!
Minuteman III Launch Control Capsule
These crew do a 24-hour shift, each of them on duty for 12 hours. To stave off the boredom, there is a DVD player, and access to the internet - if the upstairs computer itself has access. Plus, there is a chef on duty above ground and they could order a meal at any time of day or night. Sounds good to Conrad! Art!
JB and Deputy
One inaccuracy about "War Games" is the removal of any human control over missile launching. Herman Kahn analysed the idea in 1959 and dismissed it, because you cannot risk global thermonuclear war if the computer glitches, is hacked, or mis-interprets data.
Back to Jake. The last question he was asked in the Q & A session was about ICBM countermeasures, and if there is any way to shoot them down after they launch?
This is a tricky one. JB revealed that, in their terminal approach, a Minuteman III warhead is travelling at Mach 23, which is twice as fast as I'd previously understood them to travel. To put it in perspective, that's 17,641 miles per hour. Even if they had no weapons payload, an impact from an inert warhead would still take out a city block. Art!
"Instant sunshine"
JB re-iterated the analogy that attempting to use an Anti-Ballistic Missile to destroy an incoming ICBM is like trying to hit a bullet in flight with another bullet. It can be done, but it's tricky when trying to get close enough to destroy with high explosive, BOOJUM! has covered the insanely fast South Canadian Sprint missile, which was an early Sixties ABM; to get over the problems of having to get close enough, they used a low-yield nuclear warhead. Well - yeah, that'll work. Don't think you can get away with that today, mind. Art!
Go to Youtube and type in "Sprint missile launch" for jaw-dropping footage.
I realise that's going off-track a bit, so here's a final metric for you. The South Canadians have 5,400 nuclear warheads and spend $50 billion per annum maintaining them. The Ruffians have 6,000 and spend $5 billion per annum maintaining them. If the other shoe drops, whose missiles are going to launch?
I shall leave you to ponder on that one. Have a nice day now!
Daily Dose Of Dog
Because someone out there is bound to be missing the furry little pudding. Art!
Looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, hmmm?
Because I didn't take her out Tuesday afternoon - it was pelting down from mid-day onwards - Conrad dutifully bit the bullet and took her out last night. The weather was so awful she was reluctant at first and I don't blame her, as it was lashing down and blowing a gale. Still, a commitment is a commitment and we did a quick trot to Cherry Grove and back. My socks got soaked because I forgot to take my Crocs off.
No More Empty Spaces Photos
Good news? Bad news? Only you can tell!
However, there is this - Art!
On the BBC News page
Well, actually, Auntie, I do. It would be a black comedy about a small, specialist Whitehall team called the "Special Contingencies Planning Unit", whose job it is to draw up plans for deadly dangerous events. Such as (but not limited to): asteroid strike; tsunami; nuclear war (how very topical!);alien attack; zombie apocalypse; AI takes over. Fun stuff like that. Hopefully it would satirise bureaucracy, and they'd run computer simulations with their own Cray supercomputer (acquired via dodgy means), and also be in perpetual awe and envy of their South Canadian equivalent, who have a team of hundreds, their own office block and a budget of billions.
We'd still have the better architecture
"The Sea Of Sand"
The action has shifted back to Earth and the arrival of several hundred bio-vores from Homeworld, who have killed or captured the original 'heretic' garrison.
Once the surprise wore off, there had been a few short skirmishes. Using stunners in defence, the heretics fell back to their armoury, Eviscerating any injured attackers they came across. It took a co-ordinated assault to storm the armoury and kill the remaining handful of heretics, and their greater size and physical strength caused most of the fatalities within the Assault Detachment.
Ihouda summoned the Sub-Leaders
"Eviscerate the prisoners and wounded. Send a message back to Homeworld informing of success. Establish what the Factory unit has been instructed to produce. Locate local bio-mass resources."
He looked around the Infiltration Complex again, wondering when daylight would arrive. You didn't know with these Target Worlds, and he felt more vulnerable in the darkness. Then there was the immense nearby satellite, which cast a faint light over the sands. Homeworld did not possess such a moon. The novelty of the nearby orbiting body caused many of the Assault Detachment to look over their shoulders warily, feeling under observation.
Lord Excellency Sur felt uneasy.
Not at the current state of things on Target World Seventeen. No, that was highly satisfactory. All the heretics dead, on a par with their Eviscerated comrade's remains lying in the approach trench of his audience hall. No Target World natives aware of the presence of bio-vores. The prospect of a whole world to plunder.
"Locate local bio-mass resources" has an unpleasant ring to it.
"Hotel Del Luna"
Still enjoying this entertaining nonsense. Jang Man-Wol, who is both owner of and owned by the titular hotel - we have yet to discover why - always goes on a champagne binge when she's in a bad mood. Given that she is perpetually moody, she's gone through a lot of champagne. Our hero Koo Chang-Sang (going by the on-screen translation not Wikipedia) realises her money has run out because she's resorted to drinking 'Makgeoli'. Art!
Conrad had never heard of it before. It's a variety of rice wine with a cloudy appearance and a relatively low proof level of between 6% and 9%, more like a White Lightning than wine. Historically it has been seen as a rural beverage consumed by farmers and peasant, so Jang is definitely slumming it if she's quaffing bottles of makgeoli.
Finally -
My Korean food binge continues. I did the shopping yesterday and now need to write down a couple of recipes that were bookmarked yesteryon. Chin chin!
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