Tag: Photographs

Have Some British Fighter Pr0n


Not Exactly Pretty


I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille


I don’t believe in the cost savings through tech


Hopefully, this will work better than the F-35


Does not appear to be variable cycle

The RAF and “Team Tempest” have released renderings of their next-generation fighter proposal at an online event.

It’s interesting, but based on prior performance, the F-22, the F-35, the Typhoon, and the Rafale, we are at least ¼ century from the aircraft being deployed operationally.

Rather a far cry from the 180 day interval between contract signing and first flight for the P-80 Shooting Star:

Team Tempest and the Royal Air Force recently held a virtual event to provide an update about the development opportunities of the new sixth generation aircraft to industry and government representatives from Northern Ireland, the first of a series of events to engage with industries across the UK. Within the press release there is also some new renderings of the aircraft which, we have to note, is not in its final shape as it’s being designed “from the inside out” and the airframe’s exterior design may change to reflect changes in the internal systems.

Of note is the details on propulsion, specifically the statement that thermal management will be an integral part of the engine.

This is likely in response to an issue with both the F-22 and F-35, which is that they are basically thermos bottles relying on fuel to cool mission and flight critical systems, which means that both aircraft need to carry additional fuel, and weight, for cooling.

The statement implies that the amount of fuel that needs to come back to base would be less, which would either lower weight, or increase range and endurance.

Rolls-Royce is working on the advanced combustion system technology that will power Tempest. The next-generation system is being designed to be hotter than previous ones to increase the efficiency of the engine, its range and speed, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Together with the higher-temperature combustion, there will be a new thermal management system that will use the turbine as a heat sink to recycle thermal energy, removing the need for overboard venting and improving the efficiency, and an increased electrical power production, reportedly in the order of one megawatt, that will be used to power all the aircraft’s subsystems.

This follows the assessment by Rolls Royce that future fighter aircraft will have unprecedented levels of electrical power demand and thermal load that need to be managed accordingly to maintain the airframe’s low observability. Being more specific, the company stated that they will integrate an Electrical Embedded Starter Generator that will function both as an APU and as an electrical generator after the engine is spooled up.

This is actually in some ways quite similar to what RR did with Trent 1000 for the Boeing 787, which is an all electric (no bleed air) design.

If you are into this, time to get your geek on.

Tweet of the Day

William Greenbladt, a photojournalist, who took this photo of the McCloskey’s pointing guns at protestors sent them a $1500 bill because they lifted the photo and used it as a Christmas card. pic.twitter.com/EpdRSp19Hx

— Michael Cali (@cali_photo) November 5, 2020

Not generally a fan of expansive IP protections, but sending an invoice to the S. Louis Ken and Karen for their use of his photograph of them brandishing their weapons epic.

Holy Sh%$.

There has been a huge explosion in the port of Beruit, apparently from a stock-pile over 2000 tons of ammonium nitrate left by a decrepit and bankrupt Russian freighter many years ago:

Two huge explosions have rocked Beirut, killing at least 78 people, injuring thousands more, and sending an enormous blast wave across the city that shattered windows, knocked down doors and shook buildings.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Hassan Diab, said the main blast at Beirut’s port was caused when an estimated 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate had been ignited. He said the chemical had been left unsecured for six years in a warehouse, and vowed to punish those responsible.

As the death toll climbed on the discovery of more bodies in the wreckage, at least 4,000 were reported injured. Hundreds of homes were left uninhabitable by the blast which also destroyed huge grain silos, a devastating blow to a country where bread was already scarce and which is dependent on imports by sea.

This is an explosion measured in kilotons, and as shown below, you can see a large hemispherical shockwave that looks like something out an old nuclear weapon tests from the 1950s.

It is stunning.

Another angle of the explosion

I’ve Heard of Truck Nuts, but Not Valve-Stem Cover Penises


Parked next to me


Wait ……… Is that what I think it is?


Yes, it is, and it is circumcised

I picked up Nat from camp this morning, the counselors had a camping night together, and she wanted to pick up a bite at the local convenience store, Wally’s Country Store.

So, I parked while she masked up and went in.

I looked to my left, and noticed something odd about the car next to me:  The valve stem covers appeared to be penises.

This, much like truck nutz, it appears to be a metaphor for American society today.

They are almost Trumpian in their crassness, though I am aware that truck nutz predate Donald Trump’s political aspirations by decades.

How is this a thing?

News You Can Use

Researchers at the University of Chicago have a project named Fawkes, which poisons images so that AI cannot be trained by scraping them from public websites while the images remain nearly unchanged to human eyes.

I’m thinking that Imgur should offer this as a filter:

Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Sand Lab have developed a technique for tweaking photos of people so that they sabotage facial-recognition systems.

The project, named Fawkes in reference to the mask in the V for Vendetta graphic novel and film depicting 16th century failed assassin Guy Fawkes, is described in a paper scheduled for presentation in August at the USENIX Security Symposium 2020.

Fawkes consists of software that runs an algorithm designed to “cloak” photos so they mistrain facial recognition systems, rendering them ineffective at identifying the depicted person. These “cloaks,” which AI researchers refer to as perturbations, are claimed to be robust enough to survive subsequent blurring and image compression.

The paper [PDF], titled, “Fawkes: Protecting Privacy against Unauthorized Deep Learning Models,” is co-authored by Shawn Shan, Emily Wenger, Jiayun Zhang, Huiying Li, Haitao Zheng, and Ben Zhao, all with the University of Chicago.

………

The boffins claim their pixel scrambling scheme provides greater than 95 per cent protection, regardless of whether facial recognition systems get trained via transfer learning or from scratch. They also say it provides about 80 per cent protection when clean, “uncloaked” images leak and get added to the training mix alongside altered snapshots.

They claim 100 per cent success at avoiding facial recognition matches using Microsoft’s Azure Face API, Amazon Rekognition, and Face++. Their tests involve cloaking a set of face photos and providing them as training data, then running uncloaked test images of the same person against the mistrained model.

………

The researchers have posted their Python code on GitHub, with instructions for users of Linux, macOS, and Windows. Interested individuals may wish to try cloaking publicly posted pictures of themselves so that if the snaps get scraped and used to train to a facial recognition system – as Clearview AI is said to have done – the pictures won’t be useful for identifying the people they depict. 

If someone comes up with a simple tool, it should be used on every social social media post.

We Live in Strange Times………

She has been dubbed “Naked Athena”.

Photos from Killen and independent journalist Donovan Farley went viral on social media. The woman hasn’t been identified, but she’s been dubbed by some as “Naked Athena.”

The officers shot pepper balls at her feet. Another protester ran out in front of her with a homemade shield, Killen added, but she sidestepped him and his shield.

………

About 10 minutes after she arrived, the officers left. The woman left soon after without any additional fanfare. 

This is profoundly weird.

What Happens When a Nakajima B5N “Kate” Drops an 800 KG Armor Piercing Bomb


This looks like a picture of Pear Harbor on December 7, 1941


The deck and superstructure have been severely damaged


It appears that the heat from the fire may have damaged the hull

My bad, that’s not the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, it is a fire on the Bonhomme Richard, and the ship appears to have been damaged beyond economic repair, notwithstanding claims to the US Navy that it is too soon to make that determination:

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said Friday he is unsure if the Bonhomme Richard should be repaired after it was engulfed in flames and smoke in San Diego over five days this week.

Gilday, speaking during a press conference on Naval Base San Diego across from the damaged and listing ship, said they’re still assessing damage so it’s unclear if the ship will be repaired.

“The damage is extensive,” he said, adding but he is “100 percent confident” the defense industry can put the amphibious assault ship back out to sea.

“The question is should we make that investment into a 22-year-old ship,” he said.

Yeah, I think that the ship could be repaired, if it had to face the Kaigun to protect Midway Island in 4 weeks, but under any situation short of war, it would make no economic sense to repair the ship.

Great Googly Moogly………


Believe it or not, this is a cat


Happy ending

The Humane Society of Arizona collected a cat from its now dead owner, and its matted fur was so extensive that they were originally unsure what sort of animal it was.

After removing 2 pounds of fur, from what appears to be an 8 pound cat, (25% of its body weight!) we can see that it is a cat.

What’s more, some person or persons could see that this 4 year old queen* was a majestic specimen of the species Felis catus, and adopted her 2 days later.

Her name is “Fluffers.”

H/t Naked Capitalism.

*Queen is a female cat. A male cat is a Tom.

Tweet of the Day

This was Captain Brett Crozier washing dishes last Thanksgiving in the scullery while @TheRealCVN71 was underway in Pacific so junior crew members could get time for holiday meal. (This is how its done) . US Navy photo Airman DJ Schwartz. pic.twitter.com/mL5A4TuBKN

— Barbara Starr (@barbarastarrcnn) April 7, 2020

This is a man considered to be too honest and competent for the Trump administration, so they fired him.

Truck Fump.

So Ready for the Giant Meteor

At his speech following the Super Tuesday results, Joe Biden was rushed by two vegan protesters, and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden went after one of them like Ray Nitschke.

This election is going to be a complete sh%$ show, and Donald John Trump is a master of the sh%$ show.

I am SO sick and tired of this bullsh%$.

I appreciate the fact that Jill Biden is a complete bad-ass, but I want to go and live in a f%$#ing cave:

It could have been a scene out of the romantic thriller “The Bodyguard,” except the hero of the moment in this case was not a trained agent but Jill Biden.

The sequence began as former vice president Joe Biden was delivering his victory speech in Los Angeles, thanking his supporters for his Super Tuesday comeback.

Suddenly, a protester rushed the stage wielding a “Let Dairy Die” placard. With the vegan protester just a few feet from her husband, Jill Biden clutched her husband’s right hand and interposed her body between him and the woman lunging at him.

About 10 seconds later, another anti-dairy industry protester stormed the stage. Reacting with lightning speed, the former second lady swung around, extended her arms, grabbed her by the wrists and then blocked her with a stiff-arm.

Wincing, she pushed the woman back as her husband and sister-in-law looked on with concern during the sudden confrontation.