Comments | andrewducker: Interesting Links for 20-03-2016

andrewducker

Interesting Links for 20-03-2016

Mar 20, 2016 12:00

The voting record of IDS replacement. (tags: politics voting Conservatives welfare ) Consider the Merkin: A Brief History of Pubic Wigs in Hollywood (tags: movies hair sex nudity ) Boeing unveils game-changing autonomous submarine (tags: ocean automation robots Technology ) Tumblr vs Lord of the Rings (tags: lotr funny ) Alligators ( Read more... )

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Comments 14

danieldwilliam March 20 2016, 13:16:43 UTC

I'm not sure how game changing the Boeing UUV is.

andrewducker March 20 2016, 13:26:38 UTC

I was hoping for a slightly more specific response from you :-)

danieldwilliam March 20 2016, 13:59:34 UTC

I see that.

I guess the question is - what's the game?

None of the guys in the office could quite work out what it's for.

The mission duration is impressive for a propelled UUV. For long range survey missions you can use a glider which propells itself by shifting a weight about and using gravity and buoyancy to gain forward momentum.

So good batteries (or no energy draining equipment).

It's very big. Which is good if you want to mount big sonar sets on it but has draw backs if your mission is covert.

Being able to launch from a port is useful but putting together a package of Unmanned or Autonimous Surface Vessel, with launch and recovery facility, Unmanned or Autonomous Underwater Vessel and U/A Aerial Vehicle isn't impossible. The main barriers to doing it this summer are commercial rather than technical.

FDECO covers off some other long range long duration missions.

So, for every game I can think of stuff already exists that does most of the job.

But someone has paid perhaps $50 million to build it.

andrewducker March 20 2016, 17:03:21 UTC

Interesting. So perhaps a bit of a boondoggle, being used by Boeing to get more money for R&D rather than something that's actually that useful.

Thread 5

kalimac March 20 2016, 14:33:04 UTC

1) The LOTR bits were funny. The one with serious implications is the one describing the Sauron-eye's double-takes. Jackson's decision to depict Sauron as this blob on top of the tower has done immense harm even to readers of the book as people start thinking of Sauron as trapped, helpless, and somewhat risible. He's not. He's immensely powerful and very terrifying. The blob is a misreading of the book, though Jackson may not have realized it, and these readers don't realize it either. "The Eye of Sauron" is a metonym; Sauron has a full body. (Gollum refers to "the Black Hand" - should we thereby think of Sauron as Thing from the Addams Family movies ( ... )

Alligators drdoug March 20 2016, 16:28:46 UTC

I liked this bit of (shooped) alligator shenanigans: when they get smart enough to put up roadsigns, it's time to worry:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/signlanguage/4603140/Sign-language-week-36.html

mlknchz March 20 2016, 20:33:54 UTC

I prefer the term "genital toupee"

henriksdal March 20 2016, 22:36:53 UTC

oh you just reminded me, a billion years ago when I was 20, I was in the Amazon with my Big Brother. We were staying at a sort-of lodge, and had spent the evening out on canoes, drinking beer with the guides and looking for alligators/crocodiles, I forget which you get in flooded south american rainforest ( ... )

andrewducker April 10 2016, 15:07:24 UTC

That must have been both amazing and terrifying!

Also, I had no idea that you'd been to the Amazon! I have envy! Apart from the giant spiders, of course.