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Given that he sees his opponent as a cow, this would seem to be a high steak environment.

I'm staying off of Social Media, other than to post Explorer photos, for at least a month. I feel physically ill.

Natural disasters are particularly inconvenient for countries overwhelmed by man-made disasters.

Sack of Rome by Goths, 410

Armatures discuss tactics. Professional discuss logistics.

I am reminded of a training exercise once held for the Danish special forces, the Jaegerkorps and the Frogmen. Some squads of them got dropped unarmed and only wearing overalls in southern Jutland, were each handed a six meter long iron rail (total weight some three hundred kilos, or around 675 pounds), and told to carry it some 200 miles back to their home base in northern Jutland. In addition the police, home guard and regular army got mobilized and sent out to capture them before they made it. I heard of the method used by one particular squad to solve the problem. They hid the rail in some woods, split up to steal clothes, food and a truck, then put the rail aboard the truck and drove it at a leisurely pace towards home base. The forces busily searching their entire expected route never even noticed them. Some twelve hours later they found an unoccupied summer cottage close to base and spent the rest of the week there watching TV, playing cards and generally having a good time. Just fifteen minutes before deadline they carried the rail into their home base, having concealed the truck and left the rest of their stolen goodies behind. It should be noted that one thing Danish special forces get taught is to never do honestly what can be accomplished through cheating.

Where are the people who want to impress Jody Foster when we need them? And with better aim.

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraines-robotic-army-is-bringing-the-fight-to-russia/?mc_cid=15d2b5a3f7

Well, that means they will be leaving soon, as sirrah is incapable of STFU in the best of times.

“Getting ready to jump on the desk. The Human is acting like he needs help there this morning. And I'm just the cat to help!” - Explorer the Cat.

“The Human got the Dot out! I almost got it that time. I'll grab it next time it moves!” - Explorer the Cat.

Hello, gentles all. I have not been doing well of late and allowed myself a long leave of absence to recover. I have avoided most forums and all social media during the intervening time. I am now back, however, and intend to stay that way. I might not be very active but I will be here and available for forum needs as well as I am able. I hope you are all well in spite of everything. ~tOH.

How dare you insult King Kong that way.

Got my NAFO pin! 2 days early for my self-birthday present.

There is one good Mexican restaurant in Small City, Kansas. Fortunately, it's within walking distance of my house.

As I said, "Bayonets".

I consume very little mainstream media, but today on the way home from shopping I turned on the radio. Supporters of a certain candidate (details omitted because they don't matter) compared an opposing candidate to a wolf I must protest. A wolf never tells the rabbit that the wolf is chasing them for the rabbit's own good. A wolf never tells the rabbit that the rabbit is better off for having been eaten. A wolf never tells the rabbit how much better it is to be eaten by a wolf rather than a mountain lion. Clearly, a wolf is morally superior to the typical politician.

For some reason it hit me that a good shortened form of a cop pickup would be a cockup.

I was wondering how they became virginal in the first place. Then I decided they were probably baptized in extra virgin olive oil, which presumably has virginity to spare.

Today we honor the men of Taffy 3, the Light Brigade and the men of Henry V army,

Mrs. Prof with two of our cats, Baker (sleeping) and Pretty Girl (we didn't pick the name, bugging Baker). The phone doesn't have a name.

THE LAPTOP IS BACK HOME. It didn't arrive until almost 6pm, of course. Mrs. Prof was doing some cat work outside when the UPS driver pulled up. She signed for it and brought it in, then proclaimed she was too sweaty and tired to help me put it together for testing. I unboxed 93% of it (minus the power bricks), sat down, and promptly fell asleep. I woke back up around 8pm and finally got her to help (i.e., do most of the work hooking up the power subsystem). Once everything was connected, I booted the system, crossed my fingers, and waited for my login PIN prompt. SUCCESS!!! The system booted up to my old, familiar desktop upon entry of my PIN. I have yet to try out Dorico Pro, because I first need to apply an upgrade, and I first really need to backup my system in the event this new video card isn't stable. I'm not in the greatest of physical shape at the moment, though, or else I'd get right on that. Give me a few minutes to recover from the stress of opening up and restarting the system first, and *then* I'll get the backup rolling. Sigh. Hurry up and wait. Motto of the Longhorn Band, as well as certain other organizations, or so I'm told.

Oh, since Leonard Nimoy was brought up on the Listening thread, I thought I would mention that Nimoy provides all of the narration for Civilization IV.

You don't need to resort to anything as primitive as a pile of dirt. There is a Swiss company that creates vehicular decoys to order. Ukraine bought dozens of them made to look like a HIMARS. So the Russians ended up expending a lot of very expensive missiles on some quite cheap decoys, which is optimal only in a universe where you can convince Putin that they were actual HIMARS. And might help explain the Russian claim that they had destroyed more HIMARS systems than Ukraine had actually received.

Worst of all, he could be sentenced to The Chair.

I spread that strip in a thin mist over the parts of the internet I interface with on a regular basis.

The Canadian armed services often joke that their army and air force is only good for attacking the US, given their total lack of long ranged transports.

Rule one about doing crime. Don't write down your crimes https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/08/26/marine-vet-arrested-after-self-publishing-book-about-storming-us-capitol-jan-6.html

Unless, of course, you realize in a century or so that you can retrofit the sunken Yamato into a Space Battleship

Sorta like being an organ donor. They don't expect you to bring in any.

Today in Ukrainian independents day. Hopefully this is the last one with part of the country under occupation.

Would make the presidential debates a lot more interesting. Plus we would find out who get's the firemen's vote, based on which ass flames they put out first.

"The Human went out on the wheel thing this morning. He's still breathing heavy and making grunting noises. He needs help and I'll jump up on the desk and give it to him" - Explorer the Cat.

We now have to specify "1st Battle of Kursk" or "Battle of Kursk (1943)".

A fallout of a generation that grew up with and is (overly?) comfortable with technology is an attendant cavalier attitude toward the hazards associated with said technology. I think us old timey tech aficionados have a healthy skepticism for the cutting edge claims we've heard all to often that also all to often have failed to deliver. Thus 'upgrade' does not equate to 'better' for us.

Made this earlier today out of another meme I had on hand:

Well, duh, cheese season is in the fall, after all the baby cheeses have had a chance to mature.

At the rate the Russians have been digging old weapons systems out of storage, I think pretty soon they will be looking for that stuff.

Ah. But still concerning, and I just realized that this actually makes it more convenient for foreign agents looking for chance spills of vital information. Then again I wouldn't expect them to loiter on Total War: Rome forums hoping to obtain vital information about the latest generation of onagers or siege ballistae.

Gullible Thimblewits is a good name for a rock band. Marjorie, the Green Tailor is an Orc NPC that owns a shop near the village square. When you visit, she will regale you with worthless rumors she imagines in the moment. The village is full of half wits, and even they know she's crazy. How can you tell if the Space Lasers are Jewish? Is there some covering they remove for a bris? Do they require an astronaut rabbi to perform the honors? I did not realize Israel had such a space program.

Yeah, that was a major dumb decision.

Around that time I had bigger troubles with the 1998 problem. Yes. The 1998 problem. At the time -- July 1997 to be exact -- I worked in a small branch office that served as a connecting point and legal advice for a lot of bigger office. We had a LOT of mail going in and out. I had just finished reading another depressing article about the Y2K problem and my eyes landed on our old and cantankerous postage machine which was very much mechanical all the way through and thought, "Thank God we at least won't be having any year 2000 problems with that." On an impulse I opened it up to see how it worked. And to my astonishment the wheel that stamped out the dates ended at 1997. If we wanted to be in business after new year, we would need that entire wheel replaced. Really terrible design. So I went into the office of the engineer who was running the place and told him, "Boss, we have a 1998 problem." He replied, "We have a WHAT?" After I had explained he assigned me the job of finding out how to upgrade the darn thing. I soon learned that this would cost so much that we could very nearly buy a brand new machine for that much money and told him so. He got so mad that he assigned me a new job: finding the best possible new machine that would not have this problem. I spent about a week comparing offers and we finally decided on one. Incidentally, during that I found out that normally people who used our old model didn't find out until just before or right after new year, and were always in a terrible bind as a result. My idle curiosity saved our office a lot of trouble and frantic effort.

Lincoln at Gettysburg: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Trump at a rally near Gettysburg: “Our nation was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. The battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable. I mean it was so, was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways — it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow! I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And uh the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor — did you ever notice that? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill, he said. Wow, that was a big mistake, he lost his great general and uh they were fighting uphill. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys,’ but it was too late.” It may just be me but I feel Trump's Gettysburg Address kind of lacks a certain je ne sais quoi compared to the original.

"This is MY Human!" - Explorer the Cat.

Seems reasonable. He looks like a poorly made ventriloquist's dummy with really bad hair.

Or a billionaire who has too much confidence in his own skills, no matter how much it's shown he doesn't have those skills.

If it worked, Hope built the deck with Pandora's suggestion. As it did not work, Pandora built the deck. Haven't you ever been through a change in management?

Yeah, not rotating coils on a motor. My bad.

So, I am going to grumble about logistics for a bit. For large armies logistics are everything. Without supplies they cannot fight. It is entirely possible that they cannot even reach wherever they are supposed to go. This rule is even more important for modern armies but even for medieval or fantasy armies this holds true. Now Tolkien was completely aware of this and did it right. He had both the strategic and operational scale covered. Strategically in that while Mordor was a terrible place for growing food, Sauron also controlled more distant and presumably more fertile nations who paid tithes in the form of food and valuable materials. Presumably this allowed him to keep large stockpiles of food in Mordor so he could keep his armies supplied. What is more, when he did move his armies he split them up and used different routes before they converged on their target (as seen in the battle for Minas Tirith). This made them much more manageable supply-wise; moving all his troops in a single column would have been unmanageably difficult. (David Weber also did this well in his Safehold series where he not only describes the logistics very realistically but also has them be the deciding factor in at least three or four of the campaigns described.) Unfortunately -- and this is where my ranting begins -- not all authors are very concerned with this. Especially the Tolkien ripoffs have a tendency to have huge armies but not spend even a moment of thought on where they get their food from. A particularly egregious example would be Robert Jordan's massive The Dragon Procrastinating series in which Totally Not Morgoth™ has a massive army of Absolutely Not Orcs™ and I Can't Believe It's Not Nazgul™. This army somehow emerges fully equipped from a country described as being as about as welcoming as a WH40K hellworld and where you take your life in your hands if you try to travel as much as half a kilometer. There is certainly no possibility of growing food there for even a small settlement, let alone for a massive army on the march. Apparently Totally Not Morgoth™ pulled this huge army straight out of his arse. There are of course numerous lesser offenders. They typically create a Mordor ripoff which can at least credibly serve as an industrial base for their not-Orcs but where the only vegetation consists of maybe two thorn bushes and a cactus. It is blindingly obvious that this country cannot sustain an army let alone the population needed to recruit it from. It is so frustrating to me and often destroys my immersion, changing my read from enjoyable relaxation into sneering at the writer's ineptness. (I can get fun from the latter, too, but it annoys me when the writer does not even try.) In short: Armies need food. This isn't hard. Sigh.