Tab clearing

 

I've come across several very interesting stories and reports over the past week or two, but haven't had time or space to give each one the attention it deserves.  In this blog post, I'll list them all, and provide a brief synopsis.  I highly recommend clicking over to the ones that interest you and reading them in full.

1.  Tragedy in the Maldives.

DiveMedic offers several blog posts that analyze the deaths of several divers in a deep-sea cave in the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean.  He's a very highly qualified and experienced diver himself, so his words carry a great deal of weight.  Follow each link to his reports, in chronological order:

Dive Accident

Compounding Tragedy

Risks

The Next Chapter

2.  Credit card fraud at the gas pump.

Wall Street Apes warns us that by physically blocking the pump from shutting off after you pump gas, thieves can go to the pump after you drive away and pump gas for themselves on your account.  Their report includes a video clip illustrating how it's done.

3.  Shortage of lube oil?

Tamara at View From The Porch notes that lubrication oils are likely to become a lot less readily available following the Iran war.  She reproduces a warning letter from AutoZone to its managers outlining what they can expect and how the company will try to deal with it.  Very important reading, IMHO.

4.  Our medicine supply is a national security issue.

RealClearWire warns that our top-heavy reliance on China for almost all our critical medications and/or the raw materials that go into them has become a genuine national security issue.  It notes that "More than 131 million people—nearly two-thirds of all U.S. adults—use prescription medications."

I've written about this issue before.  If you rely on prescription medications, I highly recommend that you build up a stockpile of at least six months' worth of each of them - if possible, a full year of each.  If their local doctor and/or pharmacy won't help with that, many Americans buy them from pharmacies outside our borders.  That's technically illegal, of course, and therefore I can't legally advise you to do it:  but what alternatives are there?  Some drive across the Mexican border, where pharmacies will help without turning a hair.  Some who can't do that use mail-order pharmacies in countries like India.  There are several of them.  Whatever you do, don't just sit back and say "Oh, well, there's nothing I can do about it."  That won't help keep you alive if the crunch comes.  All it will take is a Chinese bureaucratic edict blocking all medicine-related exports to the USA, and we'll be in a world of hurt within weeks.

5.  Lessons learned from Argentina's collapse.

The author warns that "many American preppers prepare for the wrong kind of collapse".  He describes how, when Argentina's economy blew up, the result was that "Society did not disappear. It simply became dangerous, unstable, and deeply unpredictable".  He offers practical suggestions to deal with increased crime and violence, and points out that reliance on weapons and ammunition is less important than more mundane factors.

6.  Military snipers are being put out of a job by drones.

An interesting assessment of how military snipers are being displaced in importance by drone warfare.  Snipers are becoming assistants to the drone operators, finding them targets, helping them focus on them, and supporting them as the higher-technology drone delivers far more damage, far more accurately than a bullet could.  Future battlefields may see far fewer snipers than in the past.

7.  But is it art?

To be read with tongue firmly in cheek:

Museum officials at the Louvre announced Friday that a portable latrine recovered from a forward operating base outside Fallujah, Iraq, has been placed on permanent display in the antiquities wing alongside works by da Vinci and Delacroix, with curators citing the interior wall art as some of the most raw and unfiltered human expression documented in the post-9/11 era.

The piece, a standard-issue plastic latrine manufactured in 2002 and last serviced at no documented point in its operational life, contains on its interior walls an estimated 340 individual works including pencil drawings, marker illustrations, carved inscriptions, and what the Louvre’s authentication team described in their formal report as a surprisingly consistent motif repeated across all four walls, the door, and part of the ceiling.

. . .

The Louvre’s acquisition statement, released Thursday, describes the wall art as an anonymous folk tradition rooted in the vernacular of the American enlisted experience, comparing the recurring phallic imagery to fertility symbols found in Paleolithic cave systems and noting that the sheer volume and anatomical commitment of the work suggests multiple contributing artists across a sustained period of time.

“These are not casual marks,” the statement reads. “These are declarations.”

The rest is just as funny.  Enjoy!

That's all for today.  I hope you enjoyed the variety.  If you did, let me know, and I'll probably try to do more such omnibus posts in future.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 312

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Let's have something restful and refreshing.  Here's baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni's Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op.9, No.2.  The soloist is Matthew Jennejohn, performing with Les Boréades de Montréal conducted by Francis Colpron.

Baroque music still has the capacity to move the soul, in its very simplicity.

Peter

Too cute!

 

I laughed out loud when my wife showed me this video clip on X.com.  It's a lady calling her bobcat kitten (named "Murder", of all things!) to come and play with her.  The result is very funny, as well as cute.  Cat lovers will enjoy it immensely.  Click over there to watch it for yourselves.

No, I do not want to raise a bobcat kitten of my own.  My fingers (and other body parts) are shrinking at the thought of those claws!

Peter

The lower the cost, the easier the proliferation

 

I was struck today by the title of an article:

10,000 Low-Cost Cruise Missiles In Three Years

Procurement Plan Laid Out By Pentagon

You can read the details for yourself at the link.  Of particular food for thought to me was this:  if "low-cost cruise missiles" are now a mainstream item, how long can it be before they become cheap enough - and easy enough - to be manufactured almost anywhere?  And, if and when that happens, how long will it take renegade religious or tribal groups (e.g. the Houthis in Yemen), or terrorist organizations (e.g. Hezbollah, ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc.) to start manufacturing their own equivalents?

It's not as hard as it sounds.  Remember Bruce Simpson?  More than two decades ago, he designed and built a low-cost cruise missile (LCCM) in his home garage, using off-the-shelf components bought from Internet retailers.  He wrote an article about how easy it was to do it, including the following excerpt:

... during the past decade, huge strides have been made in commercializing much of the technology on which the cruise missile is based and it is my firm belief that building a low-cost, autonomous, self-guided, air-breathing missile with a significant payload capability is now well within the reach of almost any person or small group of persons with the necessary knowledge and skills.

Targeting/Guidance

As mentioned above, one of the key components of a cruise missile's guidance system is a mil-spec satellite-based GPS system.

Today, compact, high quality, high accuracy GPS receivers are readily available for just a few hundred dollars. The inclusion of an easily used computer interface in many of these units makes them well suited for use in a low-cost cruise missile (LCCM).

While the GPS provides information necessary for tracking waypoints and identifying the final destination, smaller course corrections (for stability) can be provided by the solid-state gyro systems now readily available for use in model helicopters and aircraft.

Instantaneous measurement of altitude and groundspeed can be provided by a semi-forward looking radar and doppler radar units (possibly built around components such as these and these. This allows the LCCM to fly lower than would be possible if relying solely on GPS and offers a degree of contour-hugging even when the exact nature of the terrain is not available.

The gyroscopic and radar-based systems could also provide an inertial backup guidance facility in the event that the GPS system was lost, blocked or simply turned off when an attack by such LCCMs was imminent or underway.

Onboard Computing

As Moore's law continues to produce a rapid rise in the speed and fall in the cost of computer chips, we've already reached the point where obtaining sufficient number crunching capability is no longer difficult or expensive.

Single-board computer systems are another readily available off the shelf component that can be recruited for use in an LCCM. Even the sophisticated realitime operating systems necessary for supporting the type of software needed to interface the guidance/targeting systems to the control servos are just a download away.

. . .

The total component costs for an LCCM (less payload) could be as little as $6,000 for the smallest, simplest version, with a larger, more sophisticated design still requiring little more than $10,000 worth of parts and materials.

There's more at the link.

That technical data, and those prices, date back to May 2002 - twenty-four years ago this month.  In those intervening years, components have become much, much smaller and lighter, much more capable, and much cheaper.  They're still freely available as elements of radio-controlled models (aircraft, boats, vehicles, whatever).  Plastic sheeting, 3D printed components, and ultra-light structural elements are easy to buy and often just as easy to make yourself.  Heck, people have built and flown in ultralight aircraft made out of packaging cardboard!  I'd say it's likely the cost to home-build a LCCM today might well be less than $2,000, and at most $3,000.  Cargo delivery drones can be even cheaper:  for example, a drone capable of delivering 20-odd pounds at a range of 6+ miles costs only a little over $500 in quantity.  Longer range?  Heavier cargo capacity?  No problem.  A warhead would be extra, of course, but with the advent of powerful "home-brewed" explosives, a warhead strong enough to demolish the average house - but still small and light enough to be carried by a LCCM or light delivery drone - could probably be assembled in a domestic bathroom or kitchen.

So, if our armed forces are talking about buying thousands of low-cost cruise missiles, what are the odds that terrorist and/or extremist groups aren't planning on doing exactly the same thing?  How would we defend against such simple, terrifying weapons if a wave of them were launched into the average American city?  It could be done by driving a rented truck or trucks to a suitable launch site, a few miles from the target zone (e.g. a park or golf course, particularly at night, or putting them onto a boat a couple of miles offshore);  erecting a wire or wood frame to hold the missiles at an appropriate angle for launch, and aimed in the right direction;  and setting them off at the chosen time.  Unless the perpetrators were seen during the preparation phase, it's doubtful they'd be detected in time to stop them;  and once the missiles had been fired, they'd simply abandon the trucks and drive away in other inconspicuous vehicles.  For that matter, they may not care about getting away.  They may have a martyrdom mentality that would welcome a final shootout with the cops (on television, of course, for the whole world to see).

That scenario is entirely feasible and practical.  I think we've got a whole new threat to our security to consider.  What we can do about it (if anything) remains to be seen.

Peter