Behold! The first line of defence for 25% of the US nuclear stockpile: Dolphins Remember how in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 you could produce anti-ship dolphin units with some sort of sonic cannon strapped to their backs? How we laughed. But more than a decade later, Register headlines like "US Navy dolphins, sea lions hunt rogue robo-subs" and "Dolphins inspire ultrasonic attacks that pwn smartphones …
That's two articles this week where my mind ended up on HHGTTG.
(Plus my kids talked about bad poetry last night, so I mentioned Vogons but spared reading any to them.)
In the same week that my age becomes The Answer -- on Thursday, no less.
Nope, I'm not getting the hang of this. I going to hide under my towel.
> If any of that had happened even once, excluding training or demonstrations
Come on, that's a totally theoretical situation. What would that lonely diver be trying to do anyway? Steal a warhead? As for any mines, they are best caught when placed (AFAIK they tend to be bulky and heavy, and need secure anchoring to prevent currents from moving them out of the way).
I guess the real dangers in such a setting would be theft of one (or more) of those heavy, heavy warheads (or parts thereof), or simply someone detonating them for fun and lolz. In both cases I don't think buoy-carrying dolphins would be very useful. I think it's more of a dazzle & distract operation ("Watch out for those dolphins!").
that the aquatic buggers haven't already moved us all to another reality multiple times trying to save us, but every time they finish the universe promptly experiences a Divide By Cheese Error, reboots, & replaces itself with something weirder?
I've grown gills, am clinging to the back of one, & hoping it'll take me with it when it leaves for good... =-J
Have an upvote and this ---> for the SeaQuest reference.
That show gave me my first real taste of "light temperature matters" -- yes, yes it does. I've hobby-studied a lot of color theory since then, and how different sources (CRT TV, SRGB, different lamp technologies) have different "white" references and all that jazz.
However, despite "science" saying to reduce blue light at night to aid sleep (I don't need the help), yellowing my phone's screen makes me nauseated. I'll take "comfortable" and "productive" color temps over whatever they claim is good for me.
I have a long association (a whole career in fact) with the vertebrate visual system, particularly colour.
It didn't start with SeaQuest for me, though. What got me hooked was one particular colour... that of money (my boss as he ended up being was paying about 50% more than others in the field - I later learned why - you needed a particularly strong mental constitution to deal with his BS. He allegedly had the highest staff turnover in the whole institution. I am quite fond of him even so... an utter genius, insightful, funny, intellectual to the nth degree. It's the temper that did it for most people... why are so many geniuses so, so angry? I hear Hawking was a superlative asshole.)
I wonder if there's only so many times you go "I TRY to explain to the idiots..." before permanent grumpification.
Also, if I was stuck in a wheelchair, with only a shitty voice synthesizer to communicate with, and unable to move, I'd probably not be a nice guy either.
Plus a couple quotes from Dr. William F. House, who was a hell of a doctor: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._House)
"It bothers me, you know, when you think you have something that works and no one will listen to you."
"Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for."
TRT,
Semi-serious answer to your question.
"why are so many geniuses so, so angry?"
The anger comes from everyone else being 'Too Slow' in the thinking dept !!! :)
It can be very frustrating when you have already worked out the answer before the question has been finished or the answer is 'Blindingly obvious' to the geniuses mind and they cannot see why you cannot see it when they can !!!
:)
The colour that is best for you is obviously neon, irridescent, hypnotic, stroboscopic, InfraPlaid.
Please stare at this dot >< until you hear TheVoices giving you instructions.
Happy birthday, and try to make sure you get the corner of the towel soaked in anti depressants, not the one soaked in UltraLax. (I hear that one tastes like shite!)
=-)p
I seem to recall that during the first Iraq war in 91 the US Navy released some dolphins to help clear an Iraqi minefield. The dolphins took one look at the odds, and promptly buggered off home. Or at least that was the official story. Perhaps the Iraqis had access to some particularly tasty tuna?
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And when the Cascadia subduction zone lets rip that part of North America is in for one hell of an earthquake and a tsunami, the usual comment being "everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast". Possibly very crispy glow-in-the-dark toast. I don't think dolphins will be much use in that situation.
This is merely anecdotal & comes from a relative whom works as a commercial fisherman in a Northern California fishing town. (Fort Brag, California; Noyo Harbour.)
The dolphins he's seen doing such ident/recovery work were armed (mouthed) with a device that looks like a mini bear trap with an extra large target-trigger-plate at the center. The dolphin holds it in it's mouth with the trap-jaws pointing forward, so when the dolphin identifies either a diver to be outed or a mine to be marked, the dolphin nose-bumps the person/device hard enough to trigger the trap, the jaws snap closed, & the dolphin snags a ring on the side as it swims away. The ring is connected to a line, the line to the pull-stop on a canister of compressed gas, the trigger springs open, the gas rushes out to fill a balloon/bouy, and it rockets to the surface to indicate the person/item to be dealt with.
The dolphin then swims back to it's handler, gets a treat for doing a good job, grabs another trap-thingy, & goes back out for more hunting.
My relative said one of the dolphins decided his fishing net float must have been a mine, marked it, & swam away. Relative recovered the balloon & trap, both plainly marked as U.S. Military property, and contacted the number to report the incident.
He got questioned, a thanks, & a warning not to fish so close to an exclusion zone. He pointed out that he was fishing in the same section of ocean he'd been fishing for decades, that he'd never been told of any such zone, & asked why their dolphin decided to mark a *commercial fishing float* as a supposed mine.
"They refused to say, saluted, & left. Fekkin' Marines. Bah!"
I never knew if said relative was telling the truth or just pulling my leg, but the bear-trap-held-outward-in-the-mouth design made sense so I'm inclined to believe the old salty bastard. =-J
Lets just say I "know" someone who lives on top of those things. Visitors that come west often watch the drawbridges go up and down and stop traffic and usually have the same question "where's the boat"? The answer is always the same "it's under the water, you just can't see it."
I was told they like to use boaters and swimmers in the sounds as practice targeting.
pew, pew....
Mum walked into the sitting room when that was on TV sometime in the early 80s to find my brother and I bawling our eyes out at the end of that film. It's the only film I can remember crying at as a kid, even though I remember none of the plot. Who cares about ET going home, or Bambi's mother getting shot. I must have been about 8.
Not seen it since, which I suspect is the correct choice.
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