Oh nothing really just wanted to share

I'm not sure I'm comfortable about autonomous aircraft like passenger planes. Like the planes are basically autonomous after take off to landing and lots have had failures. I watched the maiden flight of the completely autonomous Airbus I was shocked to see it got off the runway but never got above the trees and flew into the trees a fire balled. I'm sure Airbus was greatly embrassment and confused as to what went wrong as they tested things before its media debut. I'm really not sure if I wanna fly without a good flight crew but that's getting hard too as airlines hire junior pilots that meet the minimum certifications. Unfortunately this lowering of pilot training and experience due to automation has had deadly results where pilots make the wrong decisions or wrong maneuvers because they are not well trained. And a number could have been prevented if the first officer had taken over but even though they tell the first officer he has the right to take over the plane most would not go against their captains and even after warning the captain of danger still didn't do anything or didn't act till too late as the tradition of the captain being the lead is hard to break and NTSB investigations has found that to be the case many times and one of the things they have for decades now tried to get flight crews to set aside when taking action to save their plane and passengers. What also kills is the lack of follow up vetting that the I guess Jr. Departments don't do a real follow up and check on pilots certification. It's so stupid how many pilots lied about their certification and got hired. Like those pres and ceo of huge multi million dollar companies get their jobs and the hr dept didn't check them out like that guy running a huge company with a multi million dollar salary and some guy writes online that the huy was a liar never when to any of the universities that he said he went to and never got any of the diplomas her said he got. Like what the hell if I was a member of the board of that company they fired the guy but still had to give him a multi million severance. I would fire the hr deptment and get a whole new her crew and a new department head that would make sure they actually check out their employees. Hell I had to check out employees call former employers verify the work dates what position they worked as and if they would rehire such employee basically the only legal and safe questions. Still people do lie a lot about their job experience to try to get ahead. Saw a lot myself, my boss said I fired more guys than all the other foremen combined, told him if you send me s guy and tell me he's an electrician of a certain level I'll assign work to him as such if he can't hack it then I'm not a baby sitter and send them back to you to deal with.

 

Wasn't it also the fact that more British colonists were coming in more than any other country as well. The huge migration of people lots sent there as penal colonists and others by the cheap lure of land or even land grants had thousands of British colonist going there. Plus didn't Australia also have its silver and gold rush days attracting thousands of folks thinking they could get rich quick. Plus didn't the Dutch already have claim over indochina and a number of other islands and we're trying to solidify there claim to those? They did flock to Australia when the Japanese moved in they used s bunch of seaplanes to evacuate their government and relocate to a consulate there later the Japanese attacked the ports and sank a bunch of Dutch seaplanes most were German built if I recall like five were sunk at one harbor exploration x or unknown were trying to find one of the Dutch planes and found an unregistered Sunderland they took pictures got what ever info they could and reported it to the harbor authorities. Seems the loss was recorded but not fully documented so their expedition although they didn't find what they were looking for helped provide more documentation on the wreck they did find. I think they said it sank due to leaking fuel catching fire and the plane sank.

 

I saw that movie some time ago, probably around 2011. It wasn't really good, but was interesting and you are right, you did feel compelled to watch till the end.

 

Right after Airbus autonomous plane became a fire ball Boeing a week or two later announced its development of an autonomous passenger plane. I'm not really convinced these things are safe yet with autonomous systems failures. Damn even all those autonomous vehicle failures but we are getting better and maybe we will get the bugs worked out soon. I've heard they've been experimenting with autonomous long haul trucks that would get truckers off those long coast to coast hauls and should bring the costs down as no salary or medical insurance or retirement package. I wonder if the trains are going autonomous like they can't mess up too bad as they are on a track the worse that could happen is maybe a runaway but your think they could put a gps monitor on the trains and know how fast they are going, lol, my stupid Nextel would alert my boss whenever I was going 70 on the fwy and I'd tell him well I got an emergency call asap so I'm trying to get there asap. Tell me ok don't get a ticket. Stupidly I'd never get one in my service truck but got a few in my private vehicle.

 

The big thing about automation is it usually puts thousands of people out of work. Like all those dumb fast food workers thought they should get paid like trained tradesmen or factory workers. Most said no those people went thru years of training and fast food workers did not have that type of training. However the unions said if they got this past it would force companies to raise salaries and many congressmen jumped on the wagon. However they say as fast food wages went up most other job salaries have dropped but might be on the rise again. As for the food industry fast food jobs were pretty secure flexible but now that salaries are high a bunch of automated fast food restaurants are being built several in the Los Angeles counties but if they prove successful then many of the existing restaurants will probably be modernized and so now what happened to all those workers who thought they were going to have a better life and pay now many won't even have a job. They say if the automated industry takes over the fast food industry it could mean tens of thousands of jobs gone. In China the have those automated air taxis. If they did that here that would put tens of thousands out of work in the hack industry.

 

There's something about an ice cold beer on a really hot work day your all hot and dry and that cold beer just seems to quench the thirst , lol, although I've read the alcohol actually dehydrates you more. In any case it does seem to revive a sun dried body, drank a buch when I was rebuilding the patio years back got so tanned people who didn't know me thought I was black. I did get really dark then. My big mistake I should have replaced all the patio beams just did half thought the other half was still ok unfortunately part of the patio cover started to just crumble from extensive termite and dryrot damage and my brother cut the whole thing down so sad work like six weeks one summer rebuilding that ten twelve hours a day oh well for hindsight. Won't make that kind of mistake again

 

Ok saw that one too and they all mysteriously disappeared. They did kinda make it interesting.

 

War can get really messy, I know the Germans would try to salvage all allied planes and piece complete aircraft together but didn't know how many they had put together. I read the Germans had put a bunch of allied bombers together and were planning a surprise raid use the planes to try to sneak past the air defense and the low level bomb a number of targets but they gave up on the idea. I think they had doubts it would work. That b24 nosed in I think it said it dropped fro 10,000 feet and miraculously stayed intact the impact killed the crew and the Germans later salvaged and repaired the plane from other salvaged wrecks. The other b24 was one of 15 lost when they sent 240 b24 to drop supplies the last 160,000 German prisoners. The main tents can be seen in the center and you can see thousands of small tents set up every where must have been crazy trucking in tons of rations to feed all those guys bet they were gland when the war was over and they could process out most of them. Must have had to bring in bunches of water tankers to provide fresh water for all of them probably had lots of work details working latrine and other types of duties. Like looking at an ants nest you just stirred up.

 

We had a similar, campy, late-night show here during the same time frame, Dr. Shock's Shock Theater. Everybody watched it.

I've got a funny or sad story about a particularly bad movie.
I live a couple miles outside of Chickamauga Battlefield. When the boys were young, we used to do what they'd call "Park Missions". We'd get kitted up with our deuce gear and go roam the battlefield at night, I'd teach them land nav and patrolling techniques and we'd look for ghosts and/or devil-worshippers. If you get caught by the Park Rangers in the battlefield at night you go to the Federal jail in Rome, Ga. so you had additional incentive to maintain your tactical stealth and got the adrenaline pump from the potential bad outcome.
We'd all the time have guys I was with in the Marines or SF over to the house, we'd cook out, drink beer play music, have a fire and tell "sea stories". The boys would listen to the stories, and they particularly liked stories about helicopter insertions. One of my friends, Chuck, had been one of my corporals in the Marine Corps and was later an SF Sniper and an advisor to the Kurds in Iraq. We were talking about, Led Zepplin's "No Quarter" being the best insertion music ever. Got you really pumped up with the strong base and the way it started slow and built to a crescendo. So, me being a kid in an adult body and somewhat of an idiot, went all out on our next mission. I made my wife drive her SUV, I'd disconnected the dome light. I think there were five of us that night, we sat in the back, straddling one another in a stick facing the rear hatch. I checked my watch, when we were 8 minutes out, I had her start "No Quarter", the base was causing the glass in the side mirrors to vibrate. It was good. The song is right at 7 minutes long, so when it ended, I had her hit the hatch release and hollered at the boys, "one minute". We turned onto the insertion road, and she slowed to 5 miles per hour, one by one we scooted to the rear, dropped out, rolled and crawled into the wood line. We lay chilly for a couple minutes, listening and looking for lights, then I walked out into the road and motioned for them to assemble, and we started off on our mission. It had enough of an effect on the older son that the Marines in his unit in Iraq adopted Tool's version as mission music when they'd run missions outside the wire. Tradition is a wonderful thing.

No Quarter - Led Zeppelin HD (with lyrics) - YouTube

"They choose the path where no-one goes.
They hold no quarter, They ask no quarter.
The pain, the pain without quarter.
They ask no quarter."

The end really says it all, you're going where most people fear to go and no quarter will be asked or given.

Anyway, fast forward to 2011, the younger son is at Camp Pendleton, just back from Afghanistan, he calls home and says "Hey, dad there's a movie I saw the other day you need to check out." "What's it about?" "Marines and Aliens." "Eh, I don't know. Sounds a little far-fetched for me" "They've got this mass insertion in CH-46's, reminds me of the stories you and Jeff used to tell of helicopter insertions off the USS Peleliu and USS Inchon." I told him OK I'd check it out. The name of the movie was Battle: Los Angeles. What I was unaware of was that there was also a direct to DVD release of a movie called Battle of Los Angeles released around the same time. The wife and I were in Target a couple weeks later and I saw Battle of Los Angeles in the $4.99 DVD bin. I thought, "Yep it's as bad as I thought, only been out in the theaters a couple months and it's already in the discount DVD bin". I took it home and tried to watch it, only made it through about 20 minutes but it felt like hours. I thought I'd overpaid by about $25. even though it only cost $4.99. Next time I talked to Ryan I said, "Dude, were you smoking crack when you watched Battle of Los Angeles. It's gotta be the worst movie I've ever seen, I only made it through about 20 minutes. I wanted to go in the kitchen, get a spoon and gouge my eyes out with it. I guess I didn't get into it far enough to see the helicopter scene." He said, "Dad it's Battle Los Angeles not Battle of Los Angeles". I went out and got the correct one and it was pretty good.

Battle: Los Angeles - Insertion Phase (HD) - YouTube

CH-46 helicopter scene.

 

Wow did some reading about early settling of Australia and five countries claimed parts of it, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France, UK.

 

Hmmm... I think these were hypothetical colonies...Easy to put something on paper, something else to go to the place and plant a flag and start building...Only the UK built in Australia. This is a map of Australia 1902...1 year after federation.
NSW - VIC - Queensland - South Australia and Western Australia are already there...(NT was a part of SA at the time). This was a federated country by then...no outside colonies. We DID have groups emigrate to Australia and as is common, settled in the same areas to form a "community" (very different from a colony).


Germans for example liked the weather in South Australia, so there is a large German heritage in South Australia...Greeks liked Melbourne, so Melbourne has the largest Greek population outside of Athens etc etc...These "waves" of immigrants (jimmy Grants) are well documented and ordered. Australia brought them in to help populate and develop Australia...And develop they did...brought their skills and knowledge with them...Australia has an embarrasment of collected knowledge and experience, we are a capable people.
In short, the above picture/map you have posted is a fantasy...never happened.

 

Visiting US general endorses Australia's new multi-billion-dollar American tanks

Visiting US general endorses Australia's new multi-billion-dollar American tanks - ABC News



The current CofA Lieutenant (left-tenant) General Rick Burr - You can't see it in this picture but he is sporting a combat badge...You can plainly see his parachute badge (i think its an SAS para badge too if you don't mind)...a good example of the two different uniforms...i dig the US General's "Ranger badge" - These two dudes can look each other in the eye...Both have seen some $hit...

My own two cents worth is that buying these tanks is very much a part of the defence plan. Once the enemy gets to Australia we would need quality armour to hold and push back...in terms of a deterrent factor, i think these tanks rank highly.

 

Finlands ice Hockey Team made it to the Olympic final By beating the Slovaks 2-0. The other Team in the final will be decided between Russia and Sweden.