Sweet zombie Jebus…I just read WHY there was such catastrophic damage at the launch pad…NO FLAME TRENCH, NO WATER CURTAIN!!!
It seems Elon, on a guesstimate, decided the most powerful rocket ever built didn’t need any method of deflecting the thrust away from the plain concrete launch pad. He did plan to eventually try a huge steel plate under the rocket, but couldn’t get it done so just launched anyway with NOTHING.
NASA has been using both for over 50 years with success. A flame trench is a reinforced trench designed to redirect thrust horizontally away from ground infrastructure. A water curtain is exactly what it sounds like, a huge curtain of water dropped at ignition that absorbs the initial pressure/heat wave, also minimizing damage to ground infrastructure and lowering initial sound levels.

Why Elon decided he needed neither for the most powerful launch system ever is unfathomable. His launch pad is destroyed and this launch never even came close to 100% thrust. How many times does Elon have to totally screw the pooch as an engineer before they take his drafting table away? He’s playing with public money, somebody stop this insanely poorly implemented boondoggle please.

Did the same thing when a flight got redirected to Dallas that was supposed to go to Austin.

Bad part was that the airline wouldn't give us our checked bags. So didn't have clothes for a wedding that I was attending.

So…a state that denies climate change wants twenty billion of federal tax money (60 billion+ before its finished) to protect the tax exempt industry most responsible for climate change from the destruction is brings that they deny is real….all on taxpayer money, not a bit industry funded.

I grew up in Houston/Galveston. This is stupidity. There’s no way in hell they’ll ever stop hurricane flooding. The barriers would need to be 30 ft tall, not 5. They would also need to redirect numerous rivers that outflow through the coast, and find a way to remove unfathomable amounts of flood waters coming from land. I was there for Alicia, a relatively small hurricane in the 80’s, and all of Houston was 5 ft under water, with the bayous 40ft above their channels. That water flows into the Galveston area….behind these barriers.

This is a massive boondoggle that will never be built for dozens of reasons, but will still make numerous politicians and their families disgustingly rich, and may eventually partially protect some high value real estate, but never the entire coast. That’s today’s Texas. It bears noting, Texas is nearly $50 billion in debt with a crumbling electric grid, failing water system, no social services, and likely still $10 billion away from finishing their useless failed border fence….but plan to spend at least another $10 billion of state funds on this. How, exactly?

Nice of you to say. I’ll take “attack newt” any day.

I have a severe allergy to bullshit, so it’s mainly in my own self interest to shovel it out as much as possible….although I never dreamed it might become so much work. Some days I feel like Hercules tasked to clean King Augeas’ stables without the benefit of the strength to redirect rivers.

I would love to grab a pint with you and talk some shit, even though I don’t drink much. The same offer extends to you if you are ever in Northern California.

Damn right. Good thing Goggle's there's to protect us from all the tracking

In case you're interested, I use a plugin to redirect youtube, instagram, and a few others to alternative sources that at least claim to respect your privacy a bit more.

It doesn't work a significant percent of the time, but it works well enough for me.

The one I use is Privacy Redirect (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-redirect/pmcmeagblkinmogikoikkdjiligflglb?ucbcb=1) but I'm sure there are plenty of others.

The creator put some answers in the comments:

How the heck did i make it?

The living room of my father's place had a very strong ceiling fan, which could go in reverse. Instead of blowing air down, it would pull the air up. That would create an updraft strong enough to sustain the vortex. Next, I had a box fan and a blanket set up to redirect the air flow so it rotated around the center of the room. You can see it as the dark blue object in the back right. After the fans were turned on, I laid out an old dark red bed sheet with a small PVC pipe underneath it connected to a fog machine. The bed sheet allowed the fog to gently seep through and get pulled into the vortex, as opposed to being blasted out of the pipe. And then it was all a matter of letting the ceiling fan's updraft and the box fan's rotation mix into a 10 ft tall indoor tornado!!

wowsa. that's beyond sour grapes. bitter rhubarb?

there's the deal.

you were angry during dumb don's duncery...and just as joyous under joe's journey.

maybe seek therapy. go the other way. redirect from the Tao of Poo-o-o-p.

here. enjoy watching happy people in a sunny park. and their pups. https://youtu.be/QU8g0XNyHRw?t=283

Aaaahahaha.

Another Bobesque tantrum post? How lovely.

Trying to equate the slight disappointment the international community has with Biden as president to the abject horror of Trump as president as if the disdain were equal. LMFAHS!! Ridiculously asinine.

As usual, right wing apologists can't read. Some gaps were left when construction halted after Biden halted funding, funding the courts had deemed illegal btw, but others were not. Some were planned, some were due to failures of the fence Trump chose, some were due to contractors doing half assed jobs or being incapable of the work, some due to topography, there were many excuses but in the end, it wasn't a wall, it wasn't complete, it barely extended border barriers, and many places were left less secure...none of which is Biden's fault. They knew full well the next administration wasn't continuing this plan. You don't think they should have planned for that maybe? Finished the parts they dismantled at least before the only supporter left power? Nope. Guess not. Perfectly reasonable to leave it half done and expect the next guy who campaigned against it to finish it or take all the blame for all it's failures. Didn't Donny promise to have it done his first term anyway?

🤦‍♂️

I read a few articles from multiple sources on both sides before responding...not just the one particular cherry picked one you linked...i know better.

Not half ever wanted the wall, and likely under 1/3 want more poorly built fencing now that we've seen how horrible it is. Over half want the border secured, but that's not the same as support for the dumb wall/fence. Border security isn't just a fence, it comes in all flavors. Indeed, many agree that the best way to stem immigration is not building barriers both physical and institutional, but to increase anti narco terrorism funding in central America and end the war on drugs. Starve the drug gangs of money, they'll lose power and stop driving families out.

It was absolutely NOT paid for, Trump had to use an executive order to redirect funds that were earmarked by congress to pay for military family housing, because he couldn't get congress to pay for his boondoggle, much less Mexico as promised. If it had been fully funded, it would have been fully built.

Biden is not doing well at immigration. In his defense, he was left a clusterfuck, but he hasn't solved any major problems yet. As an adult, I'm capable of admitting that easily. The level of incompetence between him and Trump, however, are worlds apart, and the approaches are as well. One dehumanized and demonized immigrants, the other seems to be at least trying to get a working immigration and refugee system back in place, but is moving slowly. Your implications that they're both equally awful indicates either a strong bias for Trump, or strong break with reality.

I and others have clearly said many times on other threads, Biden is failing at immigration, and failing at being prepared to accept immigrant children. As a seeming right wing apologist at best, you seem blind and deaf to those complaints from the left and pretend we are childishly hypocritical instead....so no, you're far from getting it right, you're getting it totally backwards and twisted. Derp.

Another empty complaint/accusation. What fake news did I spread? Pretty easy but also completely meaningless to shout "your wrong" with no explanation, no correction, no specifics. Very Trumpian of you sir.

Anybody who writes what you did about Biden must be a hypocritical and douchey Trump supporter or just a plain brown wrapper nutjob. Even with his speech impediment, Biden is clear, thoughtful, and coherent...unlike Trump who never said a complete sentence or even complete thought in four years. Your hyper biased characterizations and factless, pointless, non sequitor, insult ridden tantrums masquerading as an argument are what paint you as a Trumpster, not your baseless accusations of hypocrisy.

Now I remember why I had you on ignore. Thanks for the reminder.

As far as I know, the Icelandic people are the only ones in history to successfully redirect a lava flow (excluding Tommy Lee Jones). They got this.

[ In January 1973, Eldfell volcano on the island of Heimaey erupted an ‘a‘ā lava flow. Over the next 5 months, billions of gallons of seawater were pumped through an elaborate network of pipes laid out across the lava to cool the flow and slow its advance toward Heimaey's only harbor, the lifeline of the island and a critical economic resource for the entire country. The fragmental nature of the lava flow's surface allowed the seawater to penetrate deep into the flow and cool the lava near its core, and the advance of the flow was slowed as the flow front thickened dramatically.]

So @bobknight33,

@moonsammy asked you a few questions. I'm not sure if you missed the request or if you're just sitting around pulling your pud yelling "COME ON FUNNY FEELING!!

I'm interested to see just what you think about the issues he's asking you rather than just seeing you jump around with your pom poms in your cheerleader outfit.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Bob, what specifically has Trump been doing well, that you'd like to see more of? Actual specifics please, not vagaries. Are you a big fan of the 2017 tax reforms? The boondoggle border wall that's been paid for by redirecting funds meant for the military, and definitely NOT by Mexico? Breaking faith with our historic allies while promoting authoritarians like Kim, Putin, and Erdogan? I really am honestly curious: what has Trump done, specifically, that you feel has been a positive for the US?
-------------------------------------------------------------

The only points he made were "keep America great" and "don't replace a coach when you're winning superbowls." Bob, what specifically has Trump been doing well, that you'd like to see more of? Actual specifics please, not vagaries. Are you a big fan of the 2017 tax reforms? The boondoggle border wall that's been paid for by redirecting funds meant for the military, and definitely NOT by Mexico? Breaking faith with our historic allies while promoting authoritarians like Kim, Putin, and Erdogan? I really am honestly curious: what has Trump done, specifically, that you feel has been a positive for the US?

@lucky760 - something odd happened when I tried to follow that Wilhelm link the first time - I got an alert about a non secure certificate and then got a redirect to a file:// link - could the Sift be hacked?

@newtboy,
" Sane policy makers DO assume the absolute worst modeled outcome"

Here we disagree. When you have a high degree of unknowns in your modelling, you don't always just go off the worst case. Let me argue from the extreme to demonstrate that in principle.

If we are looking to mitigate the risk of an extinction level asteroid strike, we don't solely look at the worst case. The worst case is at a minimum assuming another KT extinction level asteroid out there on it's way to us. Space is big enough that it's still possible one is out there undetected on it's way here in our lifetimes. The probability of that may be low, but it's still a worst case not impossible outcome.

With that known worst case, should we bankrupt the global economy building either a defensive capability to detect and destroy/redirect it, or the capability to abandon the planet in our lifetimes because of this worst case risk?

The answer to me is of course not, you must ALSO take into account other variables like the probability of it happening, the unknowns in the equation that prevent us picturing the problem with full accuracy, and other factors.

One way to resolve the issue might be to redirect some of the immense intelligence focus from Islamic terrorism to domestic terrorism.

That is what this is, domestic terrorism. It may not always have a manifesto behind it, but that is not relevant. There were numerous people who said this person was probably a school shooter in the making. He was doing things with white power groups and militias. Why didn't our mass spying that we do catch that? Because it wasn't an Islamic group.

We can ban assault rifles or put limits on them, we can make mandatory psych evals required for gun purchases, or we could do any number of things. While we look into what we can legislate, we should also be looking into how we can use resources we have in place to STOP JUST THIS SORT OF THING.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am a hardcore supporter of the right to bear arms. I am not an NRA member, because they aren't really concerned about the right to bear arms, just that they keep getting money from gun manufacturers. I still think we can keep AR type rifles, but we should have a national mandate on clip size, number of clips allowed, and we should have a mandatory psych eval required if you plan on purchasing anything other than a hunting rifle. Yes, that includes handguns.

Lol, I read "imaginary Hiller" (and assumed you meant Hillary). My bad.



We have reasonable laws already.
Most things people ask for either already exist (and anti-gunners just don't know because they don't have to follow those laws), or only screw collectors and sportsmen while not doing anything to reduce risk (which I already covered, I assume you read the earlier part, eg California compliant AR15, etc).



Nobody expects to need to form a militia.
Nobody expects the country to go to hell.

The seat belt analogy is about preparedness for unlikely events.
Like, you don't "need" flood insurance in Houston - unless you do.

Owning a gun also hurts nobody.
By definition, ownership is not a harm.

Almost all guns will never be used to do any harm.
The very statement that "guns are all about hurting other people" is a non-empirical assertion.

Just shy of every last gun owner doesn't imagine themselves as Bruce Willis. Asserting that they do is a straw man.


You remind me of Republicans that complain that Black people are welfare queens (so they can redirect money out of welfare). Or Republicans that complain that Trans people are pedophiles in hiding (so they can pander to religious zelot voters). Creating a straw man and then getting mad about the straw man (rather than the real people) is self serving.


* Only the rarest few people think they are Roy Rogers. That is a straw man that does not apply to just shy of every gun owner.
* You don't need a gun for home defense... unless you do.
* Differences in likelihood of death armed vs unarmed is happenstance.
(Doesn't matter either way. Googled some likelihoods : http://www.theblaze.com/news/2013/02/15/how-likely-are-you-to-die-from-gun-violence-this-interesting-chart-puts-it-in-perspective/
You'd have to suffer death 350'000 times before you're at a 50/50 chance of your next death being by firearms.)
[EDIT, math error. Should say 17'000 years lived to reach a 50/50 chance of death by firearms in the next year]
* Technically, even 1 vote gets someone elected. You don't control who is on the ballot.



NRA and NSSF are on life support. They have to fight the influence of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, most major newspapers. They are way outclassed. Current events don't help either.
The "big bad NRA" rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. As is the rhetoric that the NRA only represents the industry.

-sceherazade