Plasma Toroid

Nice plasma demo with a click-bait headline.

 

Nice plasma demo with a click-bait headline.

How so? I usually can tell. You know something I don't?

 

Not really. The word Tokamak is normally a reference to a fusion device, not a fancy Xenon bulb.

 

This is the best explanation of the history and evolution of the International Phonetic Alphabet that I've ever come across.

The genius logic of the NATO phonetic alphabet

Back when I was first working for my first career employer, I was sharing an office with an H1-B worker from China, who spoke pretty good English.

I often placed orders with DigiKey and, back then, it was easiest and routine to call them up and place the order item by item with one of their representatives. Since part numbers involve a lot of letters in arbitrary arrangements, I would spell out part numbers using the ICAO alphabet, which I knew well from both my military and my aviation background, while the representative would read them back using something very similar to the Able-Baker alphabet which is the one most commonly used outside of military and aviation circles. One day I had to fumble around with papers and their catalog during this, so I put the phone on speaker. My office mate, of course, therefore heard both sides of the conversation and instantly got completely confused because I would say one string of words, the rep would read back a completely different string of words, and I would tell them that they were correct. I made for an interesting conversation when I got off the phone.

The only real confusion I ever encountered, even when using it to spell things out for someone that has never heard of it, was a single time when someone that the person I was talking to heard me say, "Sierra" and understood it to be "Cierra", because they knew someone by that name. All the more reason that I have always hated this desire so many people have to intentionally misspell the name that they give their kids in order to make them more fashionable.

 

 

 

Solar Orbiter captures first detailed view of Sun’s poles and fast magnetic flows

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What a pain it was running computer cables on the Battleship New Jersey and her sisters during the 80's recommissioning. Our crew built the computer complex (2 separated rooms for redundancy) deep in the ship but they needed terminals on the bridge, fire-control topside and other places outside of the armor-belt. We needed to run armored MIL-standard cables where every conductor was packed (water would leak inside the cable) with water-tight Monkey-Sh$t into stuffing tubes with packed Monkey-Sh$t into stuffing tubes welded into foot thick bulkheads. We all smelled of Monkey-Sh$t at the end of a days (fun) work.

 

I've used the rumble strips along the side of the road, matched the speed to the song on the radio and played along.

 

Near the Yokosuka base, they've always had great Christmas lights in Japan.

 

Anyone know what this is? take your time, I'll tell ya'll in a few days...

 

Anyone know what this is? take your time, I'll tell ya'll in a few days...

View attachment 358747

My GUESS would be a wire gauge measuring tool.

 

“The Fall Of Icarus”: You Have Never Seen An Astrophotography Picture Like This!

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Nice. But none of the other sun spots have such crisp edges as this very irregular SS. Gotta suspect it's not legit.

 

 

 

Yea, but who wants to carry all of that extra weight?

Sorry, that's an opinion from a former cycling enthusiast who loved his lightweight bike.

 

 

 

In 1993, French adventurer Emile Leray was stranded in the Moroccan desert after his Citroën 2CV snapped an axle far from the nearest village. Instead of waiting for rescue, he dismantled the entire car and spent twelve days converting it into a working motorcycle using only the tools and parts he had with him. The improvised machine carried him back to safety and later became a museum piece.

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