No! Not About Skynet
Not this time, at least. Yes yes yes, AI, to abbreviate 'Artificial Intelligence', is seen as a threat by various naysayers in the world at large. This is, frankly, coming late to the table, because sci-fi authors have been warning by example since oooooh the Thirties at a guess. Art!
Eric Braeden's finest moment. Actually that poster's a bit anodyne, let's rock it up with one having a higher Zap! potential. Art!
It's a jolly good thriller, where the South Canadians build a supercomputer intended to control their and their allies nuclear arsenals. Trouble is, as Doctor Forbin ruefully speculates "Colossus may be built better than we thought" because the Dog Buns! thing evolves, joins forces with it's Sinister equivalent and becomes World Dictator. You know, "Do what I tell you or Moscow gets nuked", and proves it by doing. Not the Sinister capital, that would be a bit much, but a provincial Siberian town gets an attack of the Big Bang Bombs, although one suspects there wouldn't be much difference in the 'Before' and 'After' photographs. Rather unusually, it's based on a British sci-fi novel. And this particular instance of forewarning took place 54 years ago, when AI was barely visible on the horizon.
ANYWAY none of that has to do with what I really intended to talk about, which was the Flabby Fraudster and his bond posting of Friday last. SIT BACK DOWN! this is interesting. Art!
Hello, Art? Something a little more appropriate, please.
I wonder - has he generated another crush? Hmmmm <sounds of Tazer being tested>
Yes, better. Okay, Conrad did warn you about
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| This bafune |
Say hello to Evan Greenberg, the CEO of Federal Insurance, a branch of Chubb who are themselves one of the largest insurance companies in the world. News to me, I thought they only made padlocks.
Evan, it seems, was given a sinecure position when Pumpkinhead was Prez, by Pimpkinhead. He cannot be described as a 'friend' because DJ Tango doesn't have any, more a sort of useful acquaintance. There are, of course - obviously! - no details of how much Grumpy paid, or if he put up collateral of any sort. This may never be revealed as it's not common practice to do so in civil cases like this, to our mutual commiseration.
Neil Pedersen, who runs a surety bond agency, explained that any collateral involved would not be real estate or the sale of it, as liquid assets are needed, not property. Also, the 30 day deadline was far too short to realise money from the sale of real estate. He also made the interesting point that, for a bond this large, he would expect the client's 'asset base' to be in the order of $17 - 20 billion, at least seven times larger than DJ Tango's net worth. Ooops! Kristy Greenberg, financial expert and no relation, said that this was an extremely risky lend. For one thing, if DJ Tango gets back into the White House, say goodbye of ever seeing any of that $91 million again. Art!
I think that's enough of the Toxic Tangerine Toad for one Intro. Don't worry, we will come back to him because, as reliably as the world turns, Bloaty Biffer Bafune Boy will create blog content.
Mainstayaway
As Jake Broe put it, the Ruffians do, eventually, learn. The key word here is 'eventually' because they can be extraordinarily dense. Take their very small fleet of very expensive A-50 'Mainstay' AWACs aircraft. The Ukrainians damaged one in Belarus last year, after which they weren't seen there any more. The treacherous Ukrainians - how dare they fight back! - shot down two in January, slaying all the crews as well. Art!
They only have 5 left, not all of which are in working condition, as one was seen near a repair hangar in Taganrog. Guess who took an interest in both plane and hangar?
No, not Lord Lucan! The Ukrainians, that's who. Art!
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| Taganrog airport |
That's the Mainstay, out on the tarmac. The next day it wasn't visible, meaning it was probably now under cover in the hangar. Art!
This is the 'After' shot, where three holes are visible in the hangar roof.
The question of whether the Mainstay stayed or got drone-strafed is a moot one; the Ruffians have kept their surviving A-50s well away from Ukraine so far, and we don't know if they even have a third crew available or will have to train them up from scratch.
Nor have the F-16s begun to arrive yet .....
Some People Have Entirely Too Much Time On Their Hands
Yes I am aware of the howling irony inherent in that statement. Once again, whose blog is it?
ANYWAY there appears to be a Lego Technic subculture every bit as large as the plain old unsophisticated version, and one obsessive in particular caught my eye. Art!
As far as I know this is all scratch-built, emphatically not a kit, because if it were a kit then you'd need a second mortgage to buy it.
Moreover, it doesn't just sit there and look complicated. Art!
Not only is it enormous, it does all that movement and deployment remotely, giving it an unholy feeling of If You Want Skynet This Is How You Get Skynet. Props to "VirtualMakerLuca" for spending who knows how many hours assembling who knows how many thousands of pieces. All so Conrad can mock him on teh Interwebz. Mind you, he has a Youtube channel, and 260,000 subscribers, so his bank balance is going to be better than mine. You know, I bet the Ukes would be interested in this chap.
"City In The Sky"
Collective brainstorming aboard Arcology One is working!
Ace felt reminded of “Vision On” when she
watched Christos and Solly arguing and altering their virtual scrawl on the
monitor screens, a veritable cascade of colours and graphics. Solly had been annoyingly slow on the uptake
to begin with, failing to realise that their computer design package would
isolate the alien’s base, if the base actually existed.
As it most probably did. If only
she’d managed to keep up to the Doctor’s
21st Century technology as it applied to music, never mind graphics
or maps or atlases.
Solly finished by explaining to Istvan what he’d managed to do: by
aggregating the migration patterns and herd movement of Australian
wildlife, the two and a half thousand square
kilometres target had been narrowed down to an area of only fifty where that
wildlife no longer moved. The data
didn’t allow any more precision than that; it would have been nice to have
eroded paths and trails to define the area more exactly, but there simply
weren’t enough animals passing that way.
Christos felt satisfied that they’d defined an area to be avoided at all
costs. He wondered if he could persuade
the other scions, Emilia especially, to get Pangolin repaired as a matter of
urgency. Another trip to the Trojan
asteroids and they could drop rocks from space onto these alien monsters.
Istvan peered at the monitor screens, enlarging their new zone of
concern. No, still no sign of anything
visible. In an hour’s time the sphere’s
circumpolar track would bring them into sight of the continent for real, and he
wondered if there would be any indication in a live feed of what lurked down
there.
Space rock, hmmmm? Where are Pink Floyd when you need them?
There Were Giants In The Earth
I think it's a Biblical quote but don't quote me, it just seemed apt after reading a BBC News sidebar heading. Art!
Finally -
Time to bite the bullet and go do the weekly shop. Courage, mon braves!
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