History, Politics And Current Affairs

You have the factor that RN Captains and commanders often displayed 'Honey Badger' degrees of near-suicidal aggression. Yes, RN famously court-martialled then hung a senior commander who'd failed at an utterly impossible task, as the French guy wryly observed, 'To Encourage The Others', but knowing ...

Remind me what the Spartans did to incompetent leaders...

Nik-note: Having spent the night up-chucking, I'm very glad I've a deep edit buffer... City of Fresno #147 There would be no short-cuts. Yes, I could use the Blaster to hack out a couple of big tetrahedra, provide easier access to the last metre or so. But a Blaster was far, far from a precision too...

Remarkable claims require remarkable evidence: Do you reckon they've delivered ?? Also, are we beginning to see a backlash upon the nay-sayers ?? I'm reminded of the AC Clarke Law which wryly observes: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into t...

City of Fresno #146 Happens I had a possible fix for this exasperating dirt-cloud: After seeing the Rock Tugs' 'Push-Me, Pull-You' dust clearance, I'd studied how they'd managed it without straining every system down-stream of each Pole's 'Vernon Preventer'. A real-neat 'software' tweak, much like m...

The AltHist mods often have issues with my short stories / novelettes. I've learned to tread carefully, work around multiple pressure points and trigger buttons. ( Took me much longer to figure how to avoid mega-death scenario in 'Bolide' than I care to remember !! ) I'd prefer to continue posting b...

Is any-one reading this tale ??

After three (3) years of feeding my FIFO edit buffer a chapter a week, I've had a mild 'crisis of confidence'...

City of Fresno #145 So near the 'saddle' between the Peanut's two lobes, local micro-gravity was seriously uneven. I had to be especially careful as orbital velocity was close to trivial. Any unwary activity would launch a langrage shower, spawn a lingering debris cloud. Although I had the Blaster, ...

Ha !! We'd usually spend a fortnight camped at Red Wharf Bay, Anglesey, or near Holyhead under the 'Vulcan' fly-way. Our big 'Marechal' frame-tent (steel not alloy), double-pegged & triple guyed, could withstand even the wildest South-Westerly Atlantic storm. ( One such blew every-one else off f...

Tuesday evening, NW UK... Weather has turned, forecasting front of spicy thunder-cells to sweep North across English Channel from France. SE UK red-warned to expect possible dousing on Wednesday, any-one else under weather front to expect similar. May reach Midlands. Thursday, IIRC, forecast is more...

Given his apparent ADHD, any answer would be out-of-date before posting complete...

City of Fresno #144 'Fresno' was holding station off 'Lumpy', about a dozen million kilometres out from the sub-Jovian. Besides staying clear of Lt. Svenson's steadily growing list of small 'Crossing Traffic' in lower prograde and retrograde orbits, the ship was sufficiently close to this system's '...

Mine has failed to connect several times again, but issue seems to be my ISP, Virgin Media, having conniptions.

Steam catapults are okay, but the plumbing 'tail' is horrendous. Bit like pneumatic 'dynamite' guns, their time seems to have passed. Especially with so many systems now demanding more and more electrical power, ranging from Radar, via anti-drone 'microwave' and 'laser' zappers to electric-driven CI...

Did your reserve Yahoo email account collapse this morning ??

Mine refused to recognise pass-word, needed a new one set via 'lost' ritual...

"it is interesting that the same guy pushing for the electro rail gun on "his" battleships wants to cancel the EMALS."

Blaart ! Blaart !! Blaart !!! 'Joined-Up Thinking Failure Alert !!'

Next, he'll be demanding a figure-head and bronze ram...

City of Fresno #143 Lt. Richards muttered something remarkably rude, then nodded. "That sounds, uh, plausible." "Sadly, yes," I stated, "We need to check it out." "Yes," he agreed, hesitated, sighed, admitted, "Gas-diving has priority, so Tug 'Cooberra' c...

So, will he now replace departing press secretary with an AI/LLM ??
And, yes, which one ??

NW UK After a seriously sultry 'Sweaty Starfish' Thursday night, with scant relief due near-calm and, possibly, a 'temperature inversion', Friday morning has brought some relief. There's a breeze of sorts, 'gusty puffs' displacing stagnant air the various desk-fans cannot shift. Big air-mover doing ...