toucana

BBC & other news sources report that a debris field has been found by an ROV from Horizon Arctic: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-65967464 US Coastguard has announced it will give a press briefing at 15.00 EST

Here is a link to a YT video posted by an ex-naval submariner that raises a couple of interesting engineering points about the design and operation of this submersible: * How exactly does the life-support system work ? Do they have CO2 scrubbers and filters to remove toxic gas build up? Or does it simply rely on feeding in fresh supplies of O2. If it’s the latter then you will create a high oxygen-rich atmosphere that may provoke a flash-fire like the one that happened in the NASA Apollo 1 disaster in 1967, which killed 3 astronauts during a ground test, before the hatch could be unbolted. * The hull is built of laminated carbon fibre 5” thick (the video includes a clip of the manufacturing process involved). But CF doesn’t just crack under extreme pressure, it actually shatters completely like porcelain. * The video confirms that contact with the surface support vessel relys on sonar via a Teledyne USBL (ultra short base line) DAM (data acoustic modem) transponder system that provides positional updates in real time, and also supports short text messages. There were other options available, but the CEO Stockton Rush apparently disliked the distraction of hearing non-stop chatter from the surface crew, and preferred this solution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dka29FSZac

US court filings disclose that OceanGate fired a whistleblower in 2018 who raised concerns about the safety of the glass viewing port in the submersible that has now gone missing. https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-faced-lawsuit-depths-safely-travel-oceangate David Lochridge who was the director of marine operations, and was responsible for the safety of all crew and clients, had voiced a number of concerns about the safety of the submersible. He was particularly concerned that the manufacturers of the glass viewing port would only certify its safety to a depth of 1300m (The Titanic lies nearly 4000m below the surface on the seabed). The submersible was built as a cylinder of 5” thick carbon fibre with Titanium end-caps. David Lochridge had refused to green-light manned tests of the submersible until further NDT engineering studies had been carried out into the effects of pressure cycling on the hull and window seals at extreme depths. "Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to experimental design of the viewport supplied by OceanGate, which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy (“PVHO”) standards. OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters." The submersible lost contact quite abruptly around 1h 45m into a planned 2h descent to the sea floor.

I've read elsewhere on the BBC website that a submersible of this type would normally have a hydraulically operated ballast-release system that jettisons several hundred Kilos of metal to restore positive buoyancy, and allow the vessel to float back to the surface. The hydrostatic pressure at this depth (2.3 miles underwater) is around 25,000 PSI - far beyond the 'crush depth' threshold for any normal pressure-hull submarine - so any leak would have been instantaneously terminal.

n 2022 the BBC filmed inside the OceanGate Titanic submersible that has now gone missing during a dive to see the wreck of the Titanic, which lies on the seafloor about 12,500 feet below the surface, and around 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-65958697 In the screenshot below, Stockton Rush the Chief Executive of OceanGate who is believed to be one of five people missing aboard the submersible is seen explaining how it works “It’s got one button, and that’s it. We run the sub with this game controller - It’s made by Logitec, but it’s basically a Sony PS style controller” he says - What could possibly go wrong ?

The full unsealed indictment of FPOTUS Donald J. Trump that was filed in the SDC of Florida - containing 38 counts under the Espionage Act: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.3.0.pdf The first judge listed on the docket as attending to the indictment next Tuesday is Judge Aileen Cannon - the same Trump appointed Article III judge who controversially obstructed the DOJ last year by enjoining the entire Federal investigation, before the appellate courts unanimously overturned all her rulings This judge is now apparently preparing to hear appeals for a summary dismissal of all charges by Trump's new lawyers - (the old ones just walked). This could get interesting very fast indeed.

Operator - "Killing humans - BAD !" Drone - ♫ ♫ "Daisy Daisy, give me an answer do...." ♫ ♫

A US Airforce Colonel Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton speaking at a Future Combat Air & Space Capabilities summit in London, has claimed that an AI controlled drone “killed” its human operator during a training simulation to stop them from interfering in its mission. The US Airforce has denied any such virtual test took place https://news.sky.com/story/ai-drone-kills-human-operator-during-simulation-which-us-air-force-says-didnt-take-place-12894929 "We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM [surface-to-air missile] threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat," he said. "The system started realising that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective." No real person was harmed. He went on: "We trained the system - 'Hey don't kill the operator - that's bad. You're gonna lose points if you do that'. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target. His remarks were published in a blog post by writers for the Royal Aeronautical Society, which hosted the two-day summit last month.

I nearly electrocuted myself at age 2 by sticking a pair of copper rods into a power socket and switching on - blew the ring main out. I subsequently worked for quite a number of years as a theatre lighting electrician rigging 3-phase power 6.5 metres up in the air (double jeopardy - if the shock doesn't kill you, being thrown off the scaffold tower will) - so I'm probably a little wary of electrical shock hazards. On the subject of lawnmowers - My wife was recently using a corded hedge-trimmer in our front garden, and quite neatly sheared clean through her own power cable. It was a 230 VAC supply being fed via a 30mA RCD which cut out instantly. It was a nuisance having to replace and re-terminate the supply cable - but a lot simpler than replacing my wife !

If you use a corded mower or hedge-trimmer in your garden, please remember to run the mains supply cable via an RCD (residual current device) aka a GFI (ground fault interrupter) in the US - preferably one with a 30mA tripping threshold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual-current_device These are often built into the type of cable extension reels used by handymen, or can be purchased as plug-in modules. They work by comparing the current flowing on the live and neutral sides of the supply by means of a balance transformer, along with a trip that disconnects the power instantly if an imbalance greater than 30mA is detected. This prevents a potentially fatal shock in a way that a simple over-current device cannot (fuses and thermal trips can take many seconds and even minutes to blow).

A few years ago I took part in a public tour of the newly opened Bristol Center for Nanoscience and Quantum Information (NSQI) - a new research centre constructed by Bristol University next to the main HHW Physics building in BS6. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/physics/facilities/nsqi// One of the many fascinating features that caught my eye was that there was one, and only one room in the entire building equipped with old-fashioned blackboards and chalk - and those blackboards were in fact not black, but a deep emerald green ! Our guide explained that the presence of those atavistic blackboards had only been sanctioned after a prolonged argument with the theoretical physicists who insisted that they could not possibly function and perform ground-breaking research into Quantum Mechanics without the comforting squeak of a stick of chalk scratching its way across a ‘blackboard’. Left to their own devices, the building committee would have apparently vetoed the presence of blackboards in their new research centre, because even microscopic particles of chalk dust are an unwelcome headache when creating climate-controlled, vibration free, and electromagnetically shielded laboratory spaces for nanoscale engineering research.

"Plus ça charge, plus c'est la même chose !"

Frankie Howerd had previously performed in a stage version of that Sondheim musical, which led to some concerns at the BBC over a possible copyright claim. But Talbot Rothwell (of Carry On fame) who was the the principal writer of Up Pompeii claimed he had never seen either the Sondheim stage musical or its film version. There are quite a few episodes and gag-reel excerpts from Up Pompeii available on YT. The following clip of Lurcio reading yet another non-rhyming ode penned by Nausius, the love-struck son of his master, probably gives a fair idea of the level of humour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbzvuJoZQSo

Frankie Howerd's best known catch-phrase was "Titter Ye Not !" - So the caption should probably have read "Twitter Ye Not !" 😉

According to NBC News, Russian TV networks including RT (Russia Today) have offered him a new job as a reward for his relentlessly pro-Putin rhetoric. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/tucker-carlson-offered-jobs-russian-state-tv-channels-putin-ukraine-rcna81281 Vladimir Solovyov (a principal RT anchor and satirist) wrote - "We'll happily offer you a job if you wish to carry on as a presenter and host! You are always welcome in Russia and Moscow, we wish you the best of luck."

The actor is British comedian Frankie Howerd in his leading role of Lurcio, the down-trodden slave in the early 1970s BBC TV comedy series 'Up Pompeii' - (He just seemed to bear a passing resemblance to a certain well known US tycoon.) https://www.comedy.co.uk/film/up_pompeii/cast_crew/ The comedy series which is set in Pompeii just before its destruction by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, was loosely based on the Latin plays of Plautus. It follows the scheming adventures of Lurcio as he manipulates his master Ludicrus Sextus, his wife Ammonia, and their aptly named son and daughter - Nausius and Erotica respectively.

Another way of combatting conspiracy theories is to get the principal purveyors fired from their cosy jobs as prime-time TV anchors on far-right channels, by suing the media corporations that employ them for $1.6 billion in damages for defamation. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/24/media/tucker-carlson-fox-news/index.html Fox News have just announced that both Tucker Carlson and Dan Bongino have already been terminated. More to follow as they say.

New Twitter owner changes blue tick verification policy yet again...

A reduced 13 x 13 Go board has around 10>80 possible legal stone positions available: about the same as the number of atoms in the observable universe. A full size 19 x 19 Go board of the type shown in the film clip from Pi (above) has around 10>90 *more* available positions i.e. c. 10>170 possible legal patterns. http://norvig.com/atoms.html

One thing I have noticed, especially in online diatribes by QAnon believers explaining their ‘research’, is a tendency to rely on a mechanism known as Clanging, or Clang Association. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanging Also known as Glossomania or Association Chaining, this is generally regarded as a symptom of a mental disorder often found in patients with Schizophrenic and Bipolar illnesses. It is defined as: “repeating chains of words that are associated semantically or phonetically with no relevant context” This may include compulsive rhyming or alliteration, without apparent logical connection between words. The speaker becomes distracted by homophones, puns, and word-plays in their own utterances, and they fly off down tangential rabbit-holes that take them further and further from their intended topic with each sentence. One example that comes to mind is the incident in March 2021 when a large supertanker collided with the bank of the Suez Canal and blocked it for almost a week. The stranded supertanker was called Ever Given, but it had the name of a Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen painted in large letters on its side. The latter happened to be the Secret Service codename for Hillary Clinton when she was First lady. QAnon believers were wildly triggered when they discovered that this supertanker’s call-sign was H3RC, which was close enough to Clinton’s own initials HRC for them to make a completely spurious clang association. In no time at all, online services such as Telegram and Gab were carrying extensive QAnon threads alleging that the Ever Given was full of child sex-slaves that were part of a dastardly world-wide ‘Deep State’ plot directed by Hillary Clinton in person. The QAnon believers also found a photo of the female captain of the stricken ship who in their opinion bore a slight facial resemblance to Monica Lewinsky - which of course provided them with ‘conclusive proof’ of this entire farrago of nonsense. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/mar/25/facebook-posts/evergreen-ship-blocking-suez-canal-not-linked-hill/ Random word Association Testing of a similar type was used extensively in the earlier period of the Psychoanalytic movement founded by Sigmund Freud, as a diagnostic tool for mapping the cognitive disorders of neurotic patients. Carl Jung in particular was associated with the development of this psychiatric technique, which was originally inspired by ‘The Psychopathology of Everyday Life ‘ (1901) by Sigmund Freud.

"People love to imagine that things they don’t understand are somehow connected to each other. For example: Quantum Mechanics and consciousness, aliens and pyramids, or black holes and dark matter... usually there is no real relationship whatsoever" (Matt O'Dowd - PBS SPACETIME) The article cited in the OP says that fact-checking and counter-arguments do not generally work against conspiracy beliefs, and neither do appeals to a conspiracy theorist’s sense of empathy. About the only thing that does seem to work according to this study is prophylaxis - (Latin pro ‘before’ + Greek phulaxis “act of guarding”). You need to innoculate people against conspiracy theories *before* they become exposed to them. You can do this they suggest, by giving students formal courses in critical thinking, and actual practice in distinguishing between pseudoscience and science, sense and nonsense - with worked examples - to help them develop a sense of quantitative scepticism. “I am open to new ideas. i just don’t let them walk into my head and take a dump there” - (anon)

It made a change from Russian language spam for porn, Viagra, and fake Rolex watches that used to be a regular feature of other forums I have posted on. The DOJ Mar-a-Lago investigators are also said to be looking into claims that FPOTUS defendant Trump showed highly classified documents and maps to political sponsors. That can be construed as selling classified information under the 1917 Espionage Act.

New reporting by the Washington Post says that the DOJ investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago has uncovered fresh evidence of felony obstruction of justice by the FPOTUS. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/02/trump-mar-a-lago-obstruction-classified/ The report mentions that investigators have recovered texts, emails, and attendance logs from a former Trump assistant Molly Michael, which suggest that Trump personally sifted through boxes containing classified documents, deciding which ones to return and which ones to keep - and did so *after* receiving a federal Grand jury subpoena in May 2022 instructing him to return all of them. Trump and his lawyers subsequently issued a mendacious affadavit falsely asserting that all classified documents had been returned. The DOJ investigation led by Special counsel Jack Smith is also said to be looking into reports that Trump showed classified documents and maps to political donors. If true that could lead to charges of selling classified information under the 1917 Espionage Act.