The War of the Fifth Coalition (1809) was a major conflict of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) that was fought primarily in Central Europe between the First French Empire and its client states against the Austrian Empire, supported by the United Kingdom. The six-month conflict was the final victorious war in the career of Emperor Napoleon I (r. 1804-1814; 1815).
“The average US president has been charged with 1.54 felonies” factoid isn’t true. The average US President has been charged with 0 felonies. Donald trump, who has been charged with 71, is a statistical outlier and should not have been counted
Felonies Donld is now up to 79 felonies, for a statistical average of 1.71 felonies per president
Sewing Machines & Planned Obsolescence
I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.
I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.
I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.
How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.
Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.
Old Machine Guts
The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.
New Machine Guts
The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.
And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)
100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.
Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.
We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)
We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.
Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader (1987) included the Field Police of the Legiones Astartes in the first official full-color visual guide to Space Marine insignia. These troopers wear black armor and a red helmet with a black and yellow hazard stripe in place of a rank stripe, and a yellow and red curved flame-like insignia on the shoulder and back banner.
Mike McVey painted a miniature with this pattern identified as Marine Field Police, appearing in Warhammer 40,000 Chapter Approved – The Book of the Astronomican (1988):
There seems to have been only one Citadel miniature released that was specific to this unit, a single arm option for the marine riders of the Vincent Black Shadow Bike, seen in a 1988 mail order flyer (in upper right):
The concept of Field Police that hunted down offending marines made sense in the Rogue Trader era, when the chapters often press-ganged the worst criminal scum from a planet. Many recruits were young adult gang members and murderers whose violent tendencies were barely tempered and focused through the use of combat drugs and surgical enhancements. Imperial Field Police weren't needed any more after retconning the more disciplined backstory of the Adeptus Astartes. However a few later Forge World sources have made reference to this insignia on special disciplinary units within certain legions known to have problems with primal urges.
10 incredibly beautiful wonders of nature in Germany
- Danube Gorge near Weltenburg
2. The Wadden Sea
3. Elbe Sandstone Mountains / "Saxonian Switzerland"
4. Chalk cliffs of the island of Rügen
5. Blautopf (literally "Blue Pot") karst spring in Blaubeuren
6. Devil's Wall near Thale in the Harz Mountains
7. Devil's Table near Hinterweidenthal in the Palatinate Forest
8. Ice Chapel on the Watzmann Mountain in the Berchtesgaden Alps, a permanent ice cave in a snow field
9. Triberg Waterfalls in the Black Forest
10. Saalfeld Fairy Grottoes
“There is a copy of the NES game Golf in the firmware of every Switch system”
Me: Oh haha, what a weird thing, probably some remnant from the debugging process -
“Since that was a game that Satoru Iwata programmed himself, this could have been intended as a way of saying that Iwata is spiritually a part of every Switch and is watching over and protecting every system.”
Me:
Oh my God, so hackers have found out the way to enable you to play the game. You know how?
On July 11th*, the date of Iwata’s passing, doing Iwata’s “directly to you” motion with the Joy-Cons on the home screen will play a sound clip of Iwata and launch the game.
(* Before you try this yourself, note that simply changing the date on your system will not work, as this runs off the Switch’s internal internet-synced clock, meaning that changing the date manually will only work if the system has never been connected to the internet)
I… I can’t…
It goes even further than that.
Firstly, opening the game like this person is in the video is only possible with a brand new unit on system version 1.0.0 that has never been connected to the Internet. Because of this, opening it is pretty hard to replicate, unless if you have a completely brand new Switch. So, even if the system’s internal date is on July 11, it still won’t open if the system version is up to date.
The thing is, it’s not supposed to be opened.
The hidden Golf game has been described as an omamori, which, in Japanese culture, is a charm usually bought at shrines that offers spiritual protection and good luck if you keep it close to you. Sometimes they’re made of cloth, and look like a tiny bag, which can contain a written prayer. People often tie them to something like a purse or a backpack, so that it’s always with them. Here are a bunch of different ones:
Omamori are not supposed to be opened, as doing so is said to remove its blessing.
Seeing as the hidden Golf game on the Switch is so difficult to run under normal circumstances, it’s probably not supposed to be opened in the first place. It’s likely meant to represent an omamori in Iwata’s honor. Its very fitting, because of how portable the Switch is, since people are likely to take it with them like they would with an omamori strapped to a purse or backpack.
Hey, everyone. Since we’re now in July and this post is still making the rounds, I’m sure there are people who are going to want to try to activate the Golf game on their Switch on the 11th. So I wanted to provide an update to this:
As @lunarhalo24 helpfully pointed out, this inclusion of Golf in the Switch system was meant to be an omamori, a blessing from Iwata. And there’s another important cultural thing about omamori to note here:
An omamori’s blessing is only good until the end of the year, after which it expires and the omamori is traditionally disposed of in a sacred fire. So the files being deleted at the end of last year seems as though it was symbolic of the blessing’s time expiring.
So yes, there is now almost no way to actually access it. Because it was never meant to be accessed.
Reblogging because this is a really interesting way of combining tradition and technology in someone’s memory and as a good luck charm.
An illustration of British infantry formations to be adopted on attacking a trench in February 1915.
This is from the orders of the 4th Guards Brigade, part of the 2nd Division for their attack on the Brickstacks at Cuinchy. It was only a minor attack using just two battalions of the 4th Brigade but the artillery of the 1st Division, the 7th Meerut Division and the French XXI Corps.
The success of the attack and quality of preparation was noted by British GHQ in France who published the plans and orders for the battle for use in training New Army and Territorial divisions back in the UK.
It also included illustrations of how to prepare gun pits for field artillery,
the laying of telephone wires
and even the proper methods for constructing horse lines
A short comic I made about my experiences as a seasonal worker, and the way places change you.
Hello everyone
I just saw this video on YouTube by Time Team, narrated by sir Tony Robinson. Works are on the way to build a replica of the Sutton Hoo ship. A crowdfunding has been set up to raise the necessary money.
I am by no means affiliated with the project, but my Germanic archaeology heart is screaming with joy.
The presentational video is here
Funding can be done here
You can submit any amount you are willing to spend, or you can “buy” a gift. They have really fun things on there, be sure to check it out!
Downy woodpecker (Picoides pubsecens) anatomy
Drawn for my colleagues. On the left, the axial skeleton + pectoral girdle (without any limbs) and the longis colli: the primary muscle responsible for woodpecker drumming. As you might expect, it’s much larger in woodpeckers than other birds.
On the right: all of the above, plus the ol’ pectoralis major, responsible for the downstroke/powerstroke in bird flight.
I will eventually shade the rest of the skeleton.
I absolutely adore this scientific illustration. So many people only focus on woodpeckers’ tongues (which wrap around their head as a cushion from the banging) but never see the muscles that actually facilitate the motion!
good stuff
The Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River superimposed on a map of Europe
…OH.
I googled it once and the only reason why the Great Lakes aren’t called inland seas is because they are entirely freshwater, not salt.
By any other metric they’d be seas. Superior especially (the big one in the upper left) behaves like a small ocean, and has claimed at least 250 ships and over 1000 people. Gordon Lightfoot wrote a frankly chilling song about her that I’ll include here:
Source: reddit.com
Today on War of 1812 Wednesday: TRYING TO START THE WAR OF 1812 TWO-POINT-OH. (Link to article).
I believe this is entirely a ploy for attention and outrage from (now fired) Fox News bloviator Tucker Carlson; although apparently the US has considered the potential of war with Canada for some time.
For everyone yelling and screaming about how they don't want to be "liberated" i.e. invaded by the United States, I am disappointed at the lack of references to the War of 1812, which had pretty much the same casus belli.
“The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.”
— Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 4 August 1812 (US National Park Service)
"In Jeffersonian plans, the war would liberate Canada while defending slavery in the American South," Alan Taylor writes in The Civil War Of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies. Taylor also finds racial motivations in the American reaction to British impressment—which "accounts for the prominence of slave-state congressmen in pushing for a military crusade to liberate white men from a bondage deemed fit only for blacks."
British alliances with Indigenous nations were also portrayed in a negative light, and according to Taylor, American General William Hull (who surrendered Fort Detroit to a small British force because he was so afraid of "savages") represented "a white man’s republic premised on subduing Indians as savages—in contrast to the British policy of allying with them as warriors." You can't invade Canada without some kind of culture war pretext, apparently. Then as now!
!!!
commandtower-solring-go
This is incredible because it is super difficult to visualise how much 6 feet actually is and most people don’t bother to try
HOLY SHIT ok first of all that is a brilliant use of technology, and second, that activated my flight response bigtime and i bet it convinced people to evacuate that weren’t gonna, which would’ve saved lives. so good job folks, worth the effort.
Why can’t she share that protective shield spell that she clearly casted on herself at least?
Source: twitter.com
-Be Belgium weapons designer
-Spend lots of money to invent a totally new firearm concept
-Sleek futuristic design
-Smol and compact
-Ambidextrous
-800-1,100 round per minute
-Fires new high velocity smol cartridge that with a smol caliber bullet which can pierce body armor
-Market to militaries around the world.
-Only significant sales are to the SciFi Channel in USA
armsnotsigns
anarcho-gunman
Why would they buy all the live ammunition? Were they unloading it to make blank rounds? Is that more cost effective than just hiring a company that specializes is blank firing weapons to work some magic?
fentakneeeeeeeeel
>he thinks Stargate was fictional
The “Stargate SG-1 is Wormhole X-treme” hypothesis aside, there was only one company making any kind of ammunition for the P-90 at the time, and that was FN itself, IIRC.
The US Military has a system used for training that’s basically “stick really high-end Laser Tag stuff on people’s body armor and guns and use blank cartridges and blank firing adapters”, and given the Secret Service’s job description and prominence, it wouldn’t surprise me if they used it too, so even if the production crew for Stargate were getting blank cartridges from the only manufacturer and weren’t building their own out of live ammo, they still could have caused a logistical headache for the Secret Service.