Tiberius Gracchus

Death of Tiberius Gracchus

Borepatch relates the story of Tiberius Gracchus, a Roman who tried to improve conditions for the average working Joe way back in the second century BC. This got him crossways with the establishment and that got him killed.

The Lockdowns are Bullshit

Catastrophe

Here's a couple of articles to read if you have any doubt:

• Epidemiologist Says Influenza Cases Are Being Counted as COVID-19 (short)
• Catastrophe Is All Around Us (longer)

I was going to say that the people in charge must be incredibly stupid, but that's not quite right. It's their people skills that got them elected. Logical thinking is not necessary, the people in charge are sadly lacking in that department and that's why we are headed for disaster.

From watching far too many crime shows, I know that any time you have a puzzling crime, the thing to do is to follow the money. Commercial real estate has been the king of the hill for a long time. Could it be that our new crop of West Coast billionaires organized this lockdown panic to destroy the commercial real estate market? Most all retail businesses and landlords are going to be destroyed. Those guys who own stock are going to see the value of their holdings go up just because of inflation due to the trillions of dollars being pulled out of thin air and dumped in the economy. When the real estate market crashes, they will be able to buy Manhattan for pennies on the dollar.

Yes, it's a far fetched conspiracy theory, but it's the only explanation I can come up with that makes any sense. Well, this or pervasive stupidity.

Why aren't the commercial landlords putting up a bigger fight?

This is not the Tripod you were looking for

H.G. Wells Commerative Coin

Kind of cool. First Science Fiction coin that I've heard of, however, tripods only have three legs. There are other complaints as well.

Stolen from The Unwanted Blog

P.S. Pix, the Linux image editor I used to cut the picture down to size, was a little confused by this image. Notice the colored pixels around the edge of the coin.

3D Printing Metal Parts

Turbo Manifold 3D Printed from Inconel Powder
PapadakisRacing

This video packs a whole bunch of sophisticated high technology into this short story. Parts of the video sound like an ad for SolidWorks. That's okay, you're going to need some kind of CAD software if you want to attempt any kind of 3D printing. SolidWorks is one of the more sophisticated packages. Carries a pretty sophisticated price tag as well. There's also the FARO digitizer that I ran into last month. Then there's the 3D printer. The last time I ran into a 3D printer that printed metal, they were using a different technique. This method looks like it should work better, but you have to wait until it's done to see if it really delivered what you want. Minor screwups can result in a useless print, and since the printing process is slow, this can mean delays in getting what you want.

I kind of imagined that 3D printing would be useful for resurrecting old machines that you could no longer get parts for, but as this video shows, it takes a lot of very expensive equipment to make these parts. You could no doubt hire people who have these expensive machines to make a water pump for your antique Goober-Snorter, but it's still going to cost you a pretty penny. Building new stuff that couldn't have been built before is a more likely application.

Demisexual

Confusion

For a while I have been wondering what makes a woman a whore or a slut. I mean, not all whores were 'forced into prostitution', some of them seem to prefer it to working any kind of straight job. There seemed to be something that was different about such women, but I could not figure it out. Then I read this post by JMSmith. It makes a lot of sense.

Château de Villette

Château de Villette

In the murder mystery La Mante that we watched recently, the title character (the Mantis) is moved from her regular prison to an old, grand country estate, the Château de Villette. It's one of the giant stone edifices that were the hallmark of the upper class before the 20th Century. It's a big place, the grounds are immaculate, but it is empty. Some heavy gauge wire gates have been installed to contain the prisoner and there is a bare smattering of furniture for her and her guard, and that's it.

The place was designed in 1680, the same time as Versailles, King Louis XIV's fabulous palace. King Louis' time was the pinnacle of French civilization, for the upper class anyway. The following century was a long slide toward disaster. See the story about the financial catastrophe that was France in the 18th Century (previously linked in an earlier post).

Aside from being used for making movies, the place has accommodations for visitors. A bit spendy I expect.

Iron Ski

Missile interception caught on snowboarder's camera in Golan Heights
Guardian News
The U.S. Army is buying Iron Dome Anti-rocket defense systems from Israel. YouTube has a bunch of videos that show the Iron Dome system in action. This one caught my eye. Skiing in Israel? 

Golan Heights

Just how tall are the Golan Heights? 9,200 feet. Yeah, that's high enough to get some snow no matter where you are.

Update July 2022 replaced blocked video with the same thing from another source.