Nobody gets nukes right

First of all, they're not that powerful. I'm sick of science fiction doing things like restarting the Earth's core or restarting the Sun with nukes. Both objects output far, far more energy than any nuclear device we could build. For that matter, it's not like a nuclear bomb will irradiate all life forever, people live just fine in Hiroshima right now.

Secondly, most anyone who doubts nukes should have been dropped in WWII is an idiot. America had pretty much razed every industrial city in Japan to the ground with bombs by the war's close. They were saving Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost expressly to demonstrate their new toys. Even ignoring the potential Japanese deaths in the event of a ground invasion, can anyone give a rationale for the American government to spend more American lives in some futile war? Probably the most sound argument against the decision is that it had let the cat out of the bag so to speak, and led to an arms race. But in all likelihood, that would have happened anyways, just a matter of when.

Thirdly, why do people think it's more preferential to have coal plants pump sulfur directly into the air over nuclear waste being buried under some mountain in Nevada? It's not like you're ever going to visit the site or anything. Besides that, the nuclear waste isn't unmanageable, it could be used to generate power in breeder reactors, the only problem is that the aforementioned reactors outputs weapons-grade material and is banned by treaties. I don't know if there's a solution to that clause, maybe if the nuclear party bought other people's waste or something.

Don't get me wrong

I'm not saying Israel is right or anything.

But is Hamas stupid or something? Every time they provoke a fight they get owned. And not in a "oh that was a close one, good game" kind of way. More like the first round is over with the scoreboard standing at ~1200 to 13 and Hamas is hoping for a comeback during the second kind of way.

Hamas is like that guy who won't stop throwing rocks at Israel, but every time he does so, Israel comes to his house and proceeds shoots him and his extended family with a shotgun.

Then, whilst bleeding on the ground, proclaims victory over the infidels!

Like, do they hope Israel just runs out of bullets eventually or something?

F-22s are quite something

I just discovered that they have a phased array system (AN/APG-77). And F/A-35s are going to be using the AN/APG-81, a derivative of the same system.

Not only that, the aforementioned radars are both active phased arrays. Those planes are going to be capable of some missile slinging madness. Or at least some missile acquisition madness, they really don't have that many munitions to sling on their own.

But what's cool is that with all its avionics, an F-22 can act as a miniature AWACS bird and designate targets for friendlies.

For comparison, the F-15 doesn't have a phased array at all and none of the current Aegis ships (even the ballistic intercept capable ones) have an active phased array system.

The DDG-1000 will have an active system, but they're quite something else. And not in a good way.

Palm Pre is pretty beautiful

Bear in mind that I was completely ambivalent (and I still am) towards the the iPhone. This on the other hand, is quite the sexy. Plus everything uses like mouse gestures, I love mouse gestures.

More here.

Two guns? Who does he think he is? Master Chief?

So I've been playing Armored Core.



This game is ridiculous, but not because your mech decimates entire fleets at a time, I take that for granted. It's because I swear you need like 4 thumbs to play it properly or you need to be a newtype. Either or.

This is what I do in Vaughan

Have a sketch too.

This is the best Dilbert arc ever

ITT: PS3 not as unaffordable as previously thought

Apparently, the PS3's cell processor is extremely well suited to performing certain operations. At least enough to warrant building a cluster as pictured. I'd tell you more, but there was too much math so I quit.



Managed and acquired by Arjen Lenstra's Laboratory for Cryptologic Algorithms (LACAL) with funding from EPFL's Domaine IT and a matching funds grant from the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique, in collaboration between LACAL, the Laboratoire d'ingénierie numérique (LIN) and the Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas (CRPP).