Some thoughts

 As is fast becoming a tradition here is my weekly roundup of writings that caught my eye but didn't get a post of their own at the time: Faster please:  SpaceX has two Starship prototypes on the pad at the same time . I like the dry humor in this part referring to the flight of SN: 'It failed to stick the touchdown and exploded on impact.  SpaceX is hoping for a better performance by SN9.'  Hopefully cancel culture won't end up going so far:  What Are the Cultural Revolution’s Lessons for Our Current Moment?   Useful lessons here:  Beating Back Cancel Culture: A Case Study from the Field of Artificial Intelligence . This is especially true, ' Don’t back down. Don’t apologize. Don’t make clarifications, and don’t try to appease the mob.' Sadly many so-called conservatives fold faster than an origami champion.    They really want a population crash, and I suspect thought like this and the forced celebration of alternative sexualities is one p...

 As it's nearly the end of the month, here are the updated Covid-19 deaths by age and pre-existing condition table from NHS England with my percentage calculations.  And here is my monthly table with data to the end of Jan: I have been busy today writing an essay so I haven't had time to crunch more numbers (I was going to look for UK-wide figures) but it is clear there is no major change to the trend, so this will be the last update on the subject until the end of February. 

' in the aftermath of WWI and the turmoil of the fall of royal families all over Europe (which had been going on for about a century, to be fair) the youth of Europe latched onto Marxism as a new doctrine to give their world meaning. It’s not even hard to see that. Even solidly prosy middle-class women like Agatha Christie (who was also a storytelling genius, but that often descends on people with no regard for who they are) made their communist characters very smart and socially conscious and you know, even when in the wrong kind of right.' Sarah Hoyt nails one of my key  points in explaining what has gone wrong with the West. 

Having lived in Japan for two years I have a bit of a soft spot for the Japanese Navy, despite them being on the wrong side in WW2. Their ships were often very well designed and their crews brave and highly trained. Having said that, occasionally their designers went a bit batsh*t crazy, case in point today's image of a proposed 'Super hyper dreadnaught': ( source ) Yes, that's the biggest battleship built in reality, the Yamato, providing a sense of scale. Here's a 4 view plan with some stats: Half a million tons? Go know how they expected to get 42 knits out of this behemoth, especially given this design was proposed in 1912 - when a typical Dreadnaught wouldn't even make 20! Def one to make you ask 'what were they smoking?'

Awkward ( via )  

 One year ago today, I set off for my Chinese New Year trip to Vietnam. This was my 39th country visited, and my last big trip before the pandemic. I spent 2 weeks in the country, flying from Taipei (where I was working at the time) to Hanoi. On arriving and passing through immigration I bought a local sim card then took the bus to the city center and (eventually) found my hostel. That first day I just had a brief wander around the old quarter and Ho Hoan Kiem lake. The next morning I set off for my twp night tour of Ha long bay. I'd booked this in advance online so was picked up from my hotel and taken to their office to meet the rest of the group. We drove to the bay and transferred to our ship, from which we went kayaking and spent the night anchored in a quiet cove. After dinner, I had a go at squid fishing with a line and caught a small one (which we had for lunch the next day!) The following morning we sailed to  Cát Bà island, which we cycled and hiked ar...

 After my previous speculative post, let's look ahead at an actual catastrophe going on right now, and the long term implications of current events. First off, it is clear that lockdowns have disproportionately hit some sectors harder than others, and large firms have had a better time than small, individual, and family-owned ones (as this  Babylon Bee article satirically points out). I would therefore expect to see even more consolidation as small firms fail to reopen and larger firms either merge or are taken over. Also longer term I would expect there to be less start-up and business creation, with individuals becoming more risk-averse and there being fewer opportunities to attract investment, lower consumer confidence, and higher barriers to raising capital. It would still be possible to have sole trader/self-employed trade like plumbing or decorating, and selling online via platforms like eBay will still be viable, but overall I expect a future where large PLC's and multi...

 Scott Lowther ponders this after viewing a clip of London getting wipe out by an orbital kinetic weapon (AKA Project Thor ). I started to leave a comment but as it got longer and longer I decided to post here instead. So, let's go through some of his questions and try to make a realistic prediction: First, he posits ' would this utterly trash Britain?' he also states ' London is responsible for a whole lot of the British economy, but it’s sorta the “fake” economy of financial stuff, not growing stuff or making stuff.' Well, first off there is the issue of all the banks being vaporized, along with all their ICT systems. I'd hope they have backups but it could be that the entire payments system ceases to function. The result for the rest of the UK would be no one would be able to use a credit or debit card, withdraw cash or even access their accounts. Guess we'd be back to cash pretty sharpish.  In addition, all the insurance underwriters (Lloyds, etc) wou...

My usual weekly roundup of stories and articles that caught my interest: On space news, 2 pieces on the prospects of asteroid colonies and space mining  (I really can't wait to get off this rock). The B-21 nears flight , The tale of a corporate merger gone wrong that echos still today, The threat to US conservatives. Money quote on the modern left's view on their opponents: 'They do not seek to persuade, because they believe that opposition to their premises is too troglodytic to merit a response' An eco-dictatorship ? Oh joy And finally, I won't be watching The Watch (guess that's Discworld added to the list of franchises ruined by wokeness)

 ' We will change you, Dr. Jones, all of you, from the inside. We will turn you into us. And the best part? You won't even know it's happening.' Col. Dr. Irina Spalko, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I noticed this line while watching this film on C4 this evening, and can't help wonder how much of the current madness is the legacy of Soviet psyops undermining Western institutions....