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I do not know much about Slovakian political formations, but the US/Canada/UK general rule that the Right is united and the Left divided is not some fixed rule. There have been many times when the Right was also fragmented, and the Fascist groups have often come off worse against other Authoritarian Rightist groups (e.g. Romania and Spain in the 30s and 40s). The articles linked suggest that the alleged shooter and his target shared broad political views -- nationalism, pro-Russia, racist... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by GenjiandProust at 2:52 PM on May 15, 2024

Right-wing does not seem to an apt description.

Loves Putin and Orban, a fash is a fash. Usually it’s the opponents of people like that who get assassinated so I have to wonder what’s up with that. Could just be that lying down with crazies gets you this.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 1:40 PM on May 15, 2024

'The Slovakian Trump', harshly anti-LGBT, pro-Russian and with ties to Orban. At first it doesn't make sense why he'd be killed by a right wing militia guy.

This might be like the Smolensk plane disaster which killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski... the destruction of that cabinet radicalized the PIS and led to an even more right wing government in Poland.

Similarly, Fico might be more useful to the Slovak national party as a martyr than a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by LeRoienJaune at 1:02 PM on May 15, 2024

"populist" - hey, sounds like he's maybe (1) really popular or (2) believes the populace should control the government.

(1) - secured nearly 23% of the votes
(2) - sympathetic to Russia's Vladimir Putin

Hate that the media uses that new fangled sexy term for right wingers.
posted to MetaFilter by airing nerdy laundry at 12:53 PM on May 15, 2024

He sounds like an asshole, but I don't like to see assassinations, especially in this part of the world.
posted to MetaFilter by pracowity at 12:43 PM on May 15, 2024

Internet use is linked to higher wealth and income and better infrastructure. I think the higher wellbeing comes from that, not being online.
posted to MetaFilter by thecjm at 7:21 AM on May 14, 2024

Thanks, I hate it
posted to MetaFilter by signsofrain at 8:39 AM on May 14, 2024

It was always conventional wisdom that Google could fuck up as many products and launches as they wanted and they'd still always be fine as long as they didn't fuck up search.

It's been fascinating to watch them fuck up search. Both the speed and breadth of the fuckup is astounding. Search went from "eh, this seems less good than it once was" to "barely useful" in the course of a few years. My primary use case for Google search now is indulging my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by phooky at 11:58 AM on April 23, 2024

The Tu-95 isn't just loud: it's allegedly so noisy that as they fly over the Baltic, NATO sonobuoy arrays (underwater sensors listening for submarines) can hear them passing.

The four turboprop engines drive contra-rotating propellers, so in addition to the supersonic shock waves coming off each blade you've got beat effects from blades passing in opposite directions.

Anecdotally (source: ex-RAF officer), the NATO fighter... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cstross at 5:47 AM on April 20, 2020

The Pluto Gangster: I think you're thinking of the Republic XF-84H Thunderscreech, a turboprop fighter where the 12 foot propeller blades were supersonic. Took 30 minutes to warm up on the ground before flight and the shockwaves could cause deafness/concussion: the airfield tower where they tested it hated it because it deafened the air traffic controllers—it was apparently audible 25 miles away. One test pilot flew it once, then noped out for good: the other ... "Test pilot Hank... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cstross at 8:57 AM on April 19, 2020

Was the Goblin the one with the prototype engine that produced such a deep thrumming buzz that it made the ground crew soil themselves?

XF-84H Thunderscreech
posted to MetaFilter by Comrade_robot at 8:43 AM on April 19, 2020

The shitpostiest of them all: XF-85 Goblin.
posted to MetaFilter by scruss at 6:31 AM on April 19, 2020

Also the fighters should be amphibious and able to deploy boats with marines in them.

The marines will carry paddleboards.
posted to MetaFilter by Joe in Australia at 11:47 PM on April 18, 2020

One of the best pieces of writing I've ever read on this topic, although it's dated now, is Neal Stephenson's (very) long-form feature article Mother Earth Mother Board for Wired from 1996 (Jesus, I'm old), which outlines the history, technology, function, and societal implications of long-haul communications lines. He actually travelled on the ships that lay the cables and visited various locations all across the globe for this, and it's very thorough and interesting. I highly recommend it.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Joakim Ziegler at 6:56 PM on April 16, 2024

Wow this is horrifying to me. The implications, in our extremely (the most in the world) carceral country, of criminally prosecuting parents for their children's crimes, are extremely distressing. Do you know the majority of youth convicted of violent crime come from socially oppressed conditions. DO you think all the parents who for structural reasons are unable to prevent their kids causing harm should be tossed in prison too?

On a personal level, I have a now adult... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by latkes at 12:15 PM on April 9, 2024

I watched some of the testimony in the first case (against the mom). I was very happy with the fact that these two were charged and with the fact that they were held accountable. It was pretty that the kid needed and wanted help. The parents seemed too busy with their own lives to bother. Then they made things worse by buying the kid a gun and failing to secure it. And, on the day of, they got called in because the kid had sketched some violent imagery, but they refused to take the kid home, and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by wheat at 12:15 PM on April 9, 2024

Since the conservative view is that parents should have complete dominion over their children I think it's only fitting that they should have complete responsibility for their children's actions as well.
posted to MetaFilter by RonButNotStupid at 11:33 AM on April 9, 2024

They bought their son the gun, they didn't adequately secure the gun, and the gun was used in a shooting. That would have been enough for me.
posted to MetaFilter by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:15 AM on April 9, 2024

Now do the useless mom of that Rittenhouse choad.
posted to MetaFilter by chronkite at 11:01 AM on April 9, 2024

I think the idea BTS is getting at is that the West was a lot less lawless than our popular culture makes us think. And much more Black. It’s a pernicious myth-system that empowers toxic masculinity. And John Wayne.
posted to MetaFilter by GenjiandProust at 4:18 AM on April 9, 2024

resulting in him being incarcerated/involuntarily committed for over a year and found guilty of felony identity theft over his actual name.

This is like irrational fear #5 on my list of things that could happen to me but most likely won't. The Net really put the possibility in practical terms even though the ease of the premise wasn't realistic (as anyone who has ever tried to get disparate agencies and organizations to acknowledge a simple change of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mitheral at 10:27 AM on April 4, 2024

I’m assuming he did a murder under his real name? There had to be *something*.
posted to MetaFilter by corb at 10:26 AM on April 4, 2024

This is such a strange story, but also I feel like most of my questions are fundamentally answered by two facts:

"Homeless man"

and

"LA cops"
posted to MetaFilter by muddgirl at 10:10 AM on April 4, 2024

CONSERVATIVE BRITISH POLITICS ... I, BORIS, CONTRIVE SHIT, EVIL PACTS

(sorry... mention of Scunthorpe always puts me in the mood for wordplay, but I'm just too demure to utter the obvious association for this particular bunch of Jeremy Hunts.)
posted to MetaFilter by protorp at 1:19 PM on April 3, 2024

Whenever I see average UK salaries, I am just floored. People will be making far less than I am to do a job at least at my level, and then there will be some news article like "this winter, heating costs expected to rise an average of 1000 pounds per household" and I just can't even imagine how there is a functional economy at all - how do people make, like, 25,000 pounds a year and spend maybe 2/5 on rent and then a thousand pounds on heat and food is also absurdly... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 1:09 PM on April 3, 2024

It's an interesting piece but really has a lot of quotes from various Conservative figures (Osborne, Frost, Rory Stewart, Cummings, anonymous former Cabinet officials) who seem to be using it as an opportunity to blame the other Tories for the mess. Which is fine, but it's maybe not as comprehensive a diagnosis as you would have gotten if you'd interviewed anyone at all on the left.
posted to MetaFilter by BungaDunga at 12:45 PM on April 3, 2024

(sorry, I'm kind of liveblogging my watch, but it's very very good)

There's a whole section in the video devoted to the SSFL and their...methods of dealing with hazardous waste. At one point, the narration goes "The nuclear reactor, laser research facility, plutonium lab, and other experiments at Aperture Scien-uuuhhh I mean SSFL", which really says it all.…

“…there, the barrels were partially submerged in water and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ambrosen at 6:46 AM on April 2, 2024

Ahhhh exotic fluorides.....
Sand Won't Save you This time

“It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalochezia at 8:29 PM on April 1, 2024

This is a field where "red fuming nitric acid" is a middle-of-the-road option
posted to MetaFilter by credulous at 5:59 PM on April 1, 2024

Dioxygen Difluoride is insane and I definitely would not want to be close to it let alone sitting in a rocket using it. This post about it from Derek Lowe is a classic.
posted to MetaFilter by WaterAndPixels at 5:55 PM on April 1, 2024

The Aerojet half was founded by Jack Parsons, so they had a certain amount of crazy built right in at the foundation.
posted to MetaFilter by rhamphorhynchus at 4:04 PM on April 1, 2024

obligatory (mefi's own) Stross: “So we brainstormed the most suicidal rocket motor we could come up with. And you wouldn’t believe just how mad it was.”
posted to MetaFilter by BungaDunga at 4:02 PM on April 1, 2024

Check out pentaborane nonahydride's hazard diamond, notoriety public. All cherries! And the best part is that its colloquial name is "stable pentaborane" because pentaborane unadecahydride is worse.
posted to MetaFilter by Quindar Beep at 3:10 PM on April 1, 2024

This is the 1968 first study referenced in the video at about 19:00, for those who really want to get into the details of this one.

I think this is the second one, or at least the date of 1970 matches up.

You might be able to get better performance by using dioxygen difluoride as your oxidizer with liquid hydrogen, but it's even more insane than this one. FOOF is hypergolic with liquid methane, at a (literally) cool -180... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quindar Beep at 2:56 PM on April 1, 2024

Obligatory SMBC

This is also probably a great place to mention that Ignition! is back in print. If you want informal stories of making thrust with fantastically dangerous chemicals it's awesome.
posted to MetaFilter by Dr. Twist at 2:25 PM on April 1, 2024

I would like to think all of us have been through Wallace's 5 step troubleshooting process with the vending machine: a)initial confidence, b)mounting frustration, c)tentative use of force, d)breaking something, e)covering it up and walking away sheepishly.
posted to MetaFilter by rongorongo at 1:20 AM on April 2, 2024

A Grand Day Out is still my favorite Wallace and Gromit production. It doesn't have any villains, just two friends exploring the lunar landscape, and an, er, misunderstanding with a vending machine. And Wallace's voice was perfectly cast! RIP Peter Sallis, OBE.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 12:04 AM on April 2, 2024

The public suicide note is absolutely monstrous, a last-ditch attempt to ruin the lives of his accusers and critics. (And it's working; the folks named in it are already getting huge waves of harassment from the worst people on the internet.)

He was clearly in despair, and i don't judge him for taking his own life, but i absolutely judge him for his vicious final act.
posted to MetaFilter by adrienneleigh at 1:30 AM on April 2, 2024

I wrote a long and angry comment, but don’t want to leave it here.
posted to MetaFilter by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:40 AM on April 2, 2024

Note: If you or someone you care about is in crisis in the United States or Canada, please call the Crisis Lifeline at 988.
posted to MetaFilter by Alvy Ampersand at 10:51 PM on April 1, 2024

I was in the group that began discussing what this machine was going to be. The modular design popped up right away. It was believed to address the yuppie desire for modular stereo systems. Modules were to be plug and play hopefully with the ability to plug and unplug things as needed. Software came up, and we discussed having a universal document type with various tools in a universal document app to create and edit various types of things in a single document. We had maybe five meetings, it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by njohnson23 at 3:03 PM on March 30, 2024

I'm so glad she rescued that poor tribble.
posted to MetaFilter by Faint of Butt at 1:18 PM on March 25, 2024

Cancer sucks
posted to MetaFilter by djseafood at 1:19 PM on March 22, 2024

As someone currently negotiating an older parent through a cancer diagnosis/treatment in the UK, facing a grossly underfunded and under resourced NHS; where we've waited months and months for "urgent" appointments and diagnostic tests, can't get answers, can't get treatment in the local area they're comfortable with but have to travel with them on very difficult public transport routes to big cities that scare and intimidate them, and deal with tired, fractious consultants who offer... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by AFII at 1:18 PM on March 22, 2024

MeFi's own Charlie Stross was bloggin' about the Wonky Wonka thing a tuthree weeks ago, but I only saw it yest.
doctornemo: always glad to get more Armando Iannucci?
He was interviewed on BBC's This Cultural Life in 2022 . . . about the turning points and cultural influences of his creative life.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by BobTheScientist at 6:17 AM on March 22, 2024

now it's apparently okay again?

Not even close. The team now has both pre-failure and post-failure core dumps, is all. That might well be enough to work out what's wrong, but whether or not they can fix it is yet to be determined.
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 10:31 AM on March 17, 2024

This new signal resulted from a command sent to Voyager 1 on March 1. Called a “poke” by the team, the command is meant to gently prompt the FDS to try different sequences in its software package in case the issue could be resolved by going around a corrupted section.

Speaking as a former embedded-systems developer, I can guarantee you there are engineers on that team who read that paragraph and rolled their eyes hard enough to snap their optic nerves.
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 10:27 AM on March 17, 2024

I don't want to piss in anyone's cheerios, so I'll tap out after this, but when you look at the launch stats for the tests of the R7 from '57-'59 vs SpaceX's 8 untethered rest flights, that's pretty pathetic.

Assuming they hit their goal, the result is going to be a lot less wasteful, I figure. Every single R-7 launched ended up in little pieces, even the 100% successful tests. Starship's whole point is to be reusable.
posted to MetaFilter by BungaDunga at 8:09 PM on March 14, 2024

While I enjoy reading about this stuff, I find the whole Artemis program to be pretty dumb. The part that makes the absolute least sense to me about Starship in particular is that it’s a program which will likely have only a tiny handful of customers (national governments with space programs) in anything resembling a near term. So what is the point of privatizing such a program? There’s no true competition that would drive costs downward and no economy of scale. ... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by snofoam at 3:45 PM on March 14, 2024

One weird but true thing is that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets have among the best safety records of any rocket ever built.

Starship is its own thing, obviously, but the company has a track record of getting rockets to space and back again in one piece.
posted to MetaFilter by BungaDunga at 2:43 PM on March 14, 2024