Darth Fluffy

I suppose I worded that poorly. Having food jump out visually from the background seems useful to an herbivore. But, hell, for all I know, maybe deer find food mostly by smell. You'd think that if they can't see a blue/green distinction, there would be more blending of the coloration on their skin, but neither color is common on mammals. Birds see color well, so not being noticed by hawks would still be a thing. But a bird that is blue would be hiding from cats in the trees. I want a phone camera viewer that does a generic mammal color translation. I want 'What would a cat or dog see?', but you could also take pictures specifically for your cat or dog. Cats are also drawn to movement, their vision system highlights small motions, so a picture that has a twitching tail would draw a cat's interest.

I wonder why. Seeing green seems pretty useful, especially to an herbivore. Blue, on the other hand, is the sky, which does not directly affect you - maybe to contrast with predators like hawks and eagles?

I cannot think of an aircraft that does that, but I believe you are technically correct, which as Hermes pointed out, is the best kind of correct. OTOH, landing an unpowered helicopter is said to be a bitch, I have this on the authority of a USAF helicopter instructor pilot in Albuquerque around 1980. All of the trainees had to do it, it was in case you lost power in flight, you would know how to land safely, apparently it is one of the most difficult maneuvers. Bear in mind that the anti-rotation devices, like tail propellers, are also no longer functional. You have essentially a glider with rotary wings. It does sound tricky.

It is easy to do a 400+ G landing once, but not one where you will walk away from. Hope someone brought a mop. Vertical landing is a severe design compromise. Somewhere, you are giving up a lot for the capability. Helos at least focus on it, and have their roles in that regard.

Edward would not have time to fly to New Mexico, would he? Still it makes more sense than spotting over vast distances. Most of Dan's space pictures with earth are from pretty far out. Mmm, making sense. Space turtle was somewhere between geosync to lunar and came in. That also makes more sense than 'Traveled vast distances in a week'.

Seconded.

"Giant space turtle is from this side of the universe." - Seems likely. "Might have magic flow sensing powers" - Also seems likely. "... and noticed the massive amount of magic energy that Moperville has ..." - This is the part I had trouble with. As HHGttG infoms us, “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” We are just barely starting to be able to image planets in other star systems at all, and even that is mind boggling. "...saw the blockage..." - Once he gets to Earth, this makes sense, assuming he had a reason to come in the first place. Edward knew to expect the space turtle, has met the space turtle before; it is possible that the space turtle came for some other reason, and then noticed the buildup, and derived the good news. "... and fixed it." - Who am I to doubt turtle powers? If it works for Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo why not for this space turtle.

The 60s series was good when it was on. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it now. I prefer the more recent movies. Even those are a mixed bag, though, not equal at all. Similarly, Arachnid Guy; I thought Toby McGuire's had a good balance between young, nerdy, and incompetent, and stepping out to be a superhero. Some of the more recent ones fail at this, in my opinion. Superman is just overpowered, so I guess I don't care, then the movies take it to silly (rewinding time and such). Anyway, if you come from a red star, you get sunburn here, not superpowers.

The show was entertaining in its own way. Sure, it was silly, but so was Wild, Wild West and Lost in Space.

I seem to recall the academies having somewhat similar issues, although not to the same degree. I can't recall running into a Citadel graduate. Are they perhaps more focused on Army? I would still attribute it to 'ill prepared' rather than 'these folks were bullies for their whole lives'. Maybe the VMI environment fosters that. The Rat run did not impress me as a good thing when I heard about it. Seems career suicidal at the very least. Your NCOs will know ways to get back at you, sir ... Or, in situations like Vietnam, it turned into homicides ; not a good thing on either side, I'm sure the perpetrators were haunted afterward, still, you don't want to be at the center of that kind of cautionary tale. It must be said that some clueless folks are an actual hazard to the folks around them. Especially when things that go boom are involved. I would not want to be a Russian right now.

That might suggest one bad instructor in their training, or someone with influence shading what the instructors taught. It might only apply to that era. My limited experience with Army guys taught me that the Army places more emphasis on being a team and working together. The Air Force does so, but does not underscore it to the same degree, and tends to stand a bit more on being competitive with each other and individual effort. I think someone that wasn't a team player would stand out more in your environment, might fade into the woodwork more in mine. I like your criteria. It is interesting that you single out platoon sergeants; my experience says that the middle enlisted ranks do the bulk of the real work in the military and ultimately keep everything moving in the right direction. That said, a high rank that truly has their shit together is like gold. Will keep things moving, rather than clog them up.

VMI is definitely a weird source; it acts like an academy, although, I think technically the graduates are ROTC grads, not sure. The Interwebs say, yes, ROTC scholarship, but surprisingly, only about one half of grads, I thought it was 100%. Army has the biggest program there, in fact, it's the largest Army ROTC program in the US. I did not know enough VMI grads to have an opinion on their quality as ossifiers, the one I knew in the Air Force was a radar engineer, and knew his stuff technically, so I suppose at least the education is good. Per the Wiki article, aspects of the VMI experience are tougher than the service academies, which might lead to more starry eyed true believers in need of a longer reality check. Since it functions in somewhat the same bailiwick as a service academy, the lack of focus on any one service seems that it would be a drawback, no? The VMI cadets acquitted themselves reasonably well during the US Civil War. While not yet soldiers, they were used in battle in support of Virginia to repel and imminent Union victory in the Shenandoah Valley at The Battle of New Market. The Union retaliated by destroying the school. Oops. I believe this situation was possible at the time due to long distance transportation being in its infancy, and the cadets identifying as Virginian, it seems less likely that this would happen again. It is interesting that you view the OCS grads as the best of breed. OCS is the shortest training toward being an officer (of the three major routes), being only three months, vs a few years. A difference is that those three months are intense and focused, you are not distracted by other concerns; even in the academies you have other activities and academics. Another difference is that in the US during our lifetimes, you have to have a four year college degree to be an officer. In a service academy or ROTC, you are earning that concurrently with your commissioning, for OCS, you have to already have the degree, thus you will be at least a bit older and have a major accomplishment under your belt. All of the prior service officers that I can recall came in through OCS, some advancement programs mandate it. I think it's possible to have prior service and get an ROTC commission, not sure. The prior service officers bring much to the table, they already have the rough edges worn off before they graduate. Medical personnel and I think lawyers have a different route to commissioning available to them. I do not know the details, what i recall is that military training is minimal, a few weeks, and I think the medical personnel at least get a rank bump; I do not recall ever having seen an Air Force doctor lower than an O-3. How are you qualifying 'best' and 'worst'? Was Patton a good general? 'Old Blood and Guts' was widely hated, but accomplished a lot. 'Wins the battles and gets me and my buddies home in one piece' helps me overlook a lot of 'is full of himself and kind of an asshole'.

No one is messing with the emus after that defeat. The emus won. So, as Stephen Colbert might say in his less refined Meanwhile segment, drop bears represent a dangerous subset of the clear and present danger that is bears. Even though they are not bears. I would cast John Cleese as the shop keeper and Michael Palin as the customer. The bit that ties these together is that John Cleese is one of the writers for the upcoming movie on the Emu War.

NP Comic for Tuesday, June 28, 2022 Is George reluctant to poke that particular bear, or bears in general? While particular bears may be more intimidating than the average bear, poking bears does not seem like a survival trait. One would venture to guess that the set {people who like to poke bears} would tend to be self limiting. At least with actual bears. Maybe she should have been named Jack?

I can picture the skit now. Sign on store front, "We'll clean your clock, $20.00". Man walks in with an antique timepiece. The man behind the counter accepts payment, takes the timepiece and sets it on the counter. Three guys with boards come from corners of the room and smack the customer around, the counterman then joining them. After beating on him for a while, they pick him up and set him on his feet, replace his hat on his head, and the counterman hands him back his still dirty antique timepiece.

I would say he's not entirely wrong, but that is not the whole story. There is a lot of truth to the adage, "Do not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance." When you are on the bottom of the pile, everything looks like malign hatred directed at you, but often the leadership is clueless, makes a decision, then rationalizes it and forces compliance. Given the sample set, "drafted during the Vietnam conflict", this is especially true. We had no business being there, our presence was entirely a misguided political misstep, and the high ranks complied, leading to an overall situation where no good can come from this. Harassment and stress is built in to the initial training. The goal, after all, is to take a bunch of overgrown miscreants who have been coddled for two decades and convince them that mommy is not going to clean up your mess and you need to man up and take responsibility for yourself. Not an easy task. Recruits are put though grueling experiences and they learn that they can accomplish amazing things. It's not pretty, but I guardamntee you that they are not the same person when they graduate from Basic Training that they were when they left high school. Lieutenants are pretty much universally maligned from both above and below. The problem with lieutenants is that when they are manufactured, they are filled with all kinds of learning, and it takes a while after the shrink wrap is removed for reality to sink in. It may be a year or two before they temper their belief in the party line with some insight into what makes the organization tick. I'll tell you that I stood in a chow line listening to a major mouth off about how much he hated lieutenants, me thinking, "You son of a bitch, the only difference between you and them is that you have absorbed a greater degree of cynicism. They'll catch up to you." Unfortunately, in a Vietnam situation, people will likely die until they do. It really all comes down to the people in power, the politicians and their ilk, or money interests. If you're going to hate on someone for screwing you over, hate on them. They put you in this mess.

How will he get out the door?

I notice they removed the bird shot.

"I do not think that word means what you think it means." (because Dan illustrated the concept)

Comic for Wednesday, June 29, 2022 Oh, great, she didn't finish, nor leave instructions.

They are a mess to peel, but worth it.

A large portion of the US military is recently out of high school and not yet truly adult. This insight explains a lot. An E-5 is probably committed contractually to longer than the minimum and has a few years under his belt. An officer has burned a few years in college before entry, and by O-3 has had a reality check, a couple of years to mature, and made some similar commitment. There is a flip side. I have seen the military out to burn a young airman for something he was not trained for and screwed up. Sometimes the accountability is very inverted, and the folks that really ought to know better get away with shit the young guys would get burned for.

The danger in Oz is the drop bears.

Sounds lovely. I was a test engineer in the USAF, much of the colorful language was directed at pieces of equipment.

Hard to find commercially. Which is a little weird, they'll grow anywhere.