Month: May 2016

NCC 1701 Enterprise Prototype?

NCC 1701

[Found here.]

It’s free, but there’s just one catch.

FreeCremation

[Found here.]

Even Kenya Goes Green on Earth Day

Kenya Goes Green

[Found here. This was originally intended to be posted on “Earth Day” but our internest access was on the fritz.]

I hate this “Earth Day” garbage. Nature has been trying to kill us off for millennia and has never back-pedaled the threat. Not once. And not once has the Earth given us the common courtesy to thank us for ignoring that undeniable fact.

So in response to “Earth Day,” we turned on all our lights, cranked up the furnace, cranked down the air conditioning, turned on the humidifier and dehumidifier at the same time, and left the refrigerator door open. I plugged in the electric weed-whacker, taped the trigger, watched it dance around the back yard and dig a trench into a fresh gopher run. Judging from the color of the dirt, it actually caught one of the little furry bastards.

We washed our socks one at a time in the Kenmore with the load setting on “full.” We flushed twice to make sure a silverfish was gone forever, and we made sure that the lawn sprinklers watered the sidewalk properly.

We also burned a lot of fossil fuel by taking numerous unnecessary trips to our next-door neighbors’ house for inane chit-chat and let the car idle in their driveway for hours until the Sears DieHard was simply glowing with happy amused electricity. We even left the TV on all night and turned the TiVo on to watch it for us.

And Gaia snickered.

[Related posts here.]

The Greatest Warship of All Time? [Survey Says…]

USNI News asked its readers, “What is the greatest warship of all time and why?” Though what makes a warship great is highly subjective, our readers offered their education and expertise to put forth their ideas as to what the answer to that question should be. And with nearly 900 reader-generated answers and more than 26,000 votes, the results are in.

The results are interesting, and this one amazed me.

turtleship

Readers also held particular esteem for the uniquely Korean “turtle boats” that came into form under Admiral Yi Sun-Shin, who in 1591 resurrected and modified the best features from designs from nearly two centuries prior to produce the Kohbukson — “turtle ship” — whose convex-covered decks resembled a turtle shell. Averaging in length from 70-110 feet, these flat-bottomed, boats, studded with spikes to prevent board and spaced with gunports, loopholes for muskets, and sporting a a powerful psychological weapon — a smoke-spewing dragon’s head at the bow — were not only virtually impenetrable, but also fast and maneuverable. The ships played a decisive role in defeating regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s numerically-superior fleets during Japan’s invasion of the Korean peninsula of the Imjin War of 1592-1598. The ramifications of that defeat still resonate to this day.

More on the Turtle Ships (including a link to a History Channel vid) here. See the rest of the poll winners here.