The Official Funny Stuff Thread™
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As a father of three girls, I prefer DADD.
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.... double aught buck enforced?
or do you prefer something a little harder hitting?
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.... double aught buck enforced?
or do you prefer something a little harder hitting?
My girls are young enough that I'm still exploring my options. ;)
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in that case.... may i recommend a GAU-8?
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A picture of something utterly terrifying to behold. And next to it is a really big gun.
Also, how big is that gun‽
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in that case.... may i recommend a GAU-8?
If I'm going for something like that, wouldn't a M61 Vulcan be more portable?
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Also, how big is that gun‽
With complete feed system, drums, and fully loaded, the GAU-8 Avenger weighs about 4,029 pounds (1,828 kg)[1].
It's used as the primary cannon of the A-10 Thunderbolt II[2]. It makes up a whopping 16% of the aircraft's weight. When removing the gun for maintenance, they have to put a jack under the back end of the plane to keep it from falling on its ass.
Early testing revealed that the smoke from the cannon choked the engines[1], and special modifications had to be made. Further, the A-10 has 2 jet engines. The recoil from the GAU-8 exceeds the maximum thrust from a one of those engines. To maintain speed during a strafing run, A-10 pilots actually need to start below 50% throttle and then increase thrust accordingly.
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@accalia said:
in that case.... may i recommend a GAU-8?
If I'm going for something like that, wouldn't a M61 Vulcan be more portable?
Bah, @Steve_The_Cynic keeps one in his back pocket.
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A car with a mind of its own is pretty scary.
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And you might want to watch your step making jokes about certain religious groups on the internet too. Wouldn't want to upset the Amish, now.
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It's used as the primary cannon of the A-10 Thunderbolt II.
It's also used in the Goalkeeper CIWS, a last-gasp shipboard defence against incoming anti-ship missiles. For some reason, the US Navy put the Vulcan into this role, in the Phalanx system, but the Dutch decided that the Vulcan wasn't man enough to do the job, so they built the Goalkeeper.Also: the special modifications required to properly cope with the gun exhaust (not just the smoke, mind) causing flameouts were NOT made. Instead, they hand-waved it by modifying the engines to be more resistant to flameouts in the absence of oxygen. (The correct modifications would have made sure the gun exhaust didn't actually get into the engines...) It's all a consequence of putting the gun muzzle way down low at the front and the engine intakes way up high at the back. On planes like the F-16 and F-15, the gun is higher in the plane and behind the engine intakes, while the F/A-18 has a purge system to force the gases out by a path that doesn't include the engine intakes.
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Early in WWI, the French Army uniform included bright pink trousers. This was changed when the leaders realized it made them easy targets.
Filed under: [Why does this remind me of @OffByOne? ](#)
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List of reasons for admission to a mental hospital in the 1800's.
Oh, that old thing.
Of course, many/most of these will be the perceived cause of whatever malady the person was admitted for, not that reading novels or having one's son marry were considered to constitute lunacy. But I'm sure you all figured that out.
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I'd like to think we got that. I thought the band names bit was funnier but YMMV.
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Hysteria is a good song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x76baZzQANk
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I'd like to think we got that.
Last place I saw that shared few people did. Much indignation.
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Hysteria
I've always liked the etymology.
From New Latin hysteria, from hysteric, from Latin hystericus, from Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (husterikós, “suffering in the uterus, hysterical”), from ὑστέρα (hustéra, “womb”). Compare French hystérie.
Much indignation.
The kind of people who need to be kept away from The Onion.
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The kind of people who need to be kept away from The Onion.
Eh, they're a pretty sensible bunch usually. The problem in this particular case is that people were locked up in asylums for all sorts of bullshit reasons in past centuries. Just not most of those reasons.
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Thought about sticking this in the Bad Ideas thread, but since it's California...
Porn actors must wear protective goggles during shoots: California safety standard
California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health has issued a set of safety standards for all California porn production sets. The 21-page standards presentation (PDF) goes into graphic detail about…
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Tounge-in-cheek letter to local newspaper about an overbearing ordinance about the results of a legal activity:
It was with great relief Thursday when I read in the East Oregonian that Pendleton’s city council took the time to pass an amendment to the city’s nuisance ordinance banning marijuana odor. Clearly, there has been no issue of greater importance facing the city. Now that this important work has been completed I hope that the council will move on to restricting the other offensive smell that plagues our community: farts. [....]
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That's true enough. I wonder what we're locking people up for now that will look archaic in 100 years time.
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lounge-in-cheek doesn't sound comfortable
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there's a movement called deinstitutionalisation to stop locking people...
it's a very interesting read
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Also: the special modifications required to properly cope with the gun exhaust (not just the smoke, mind) causing flameouts were NOT made. Instead, they hand-waved it by modifying the engines to be more resistant to flameouts in the absence of oxygen.
So they didn't make modifications, they made modifications?
(The correct modifications would have made sure the gun exhaust didn't actually get into the engines...)
If it works, it works. You can claim that your proposed modification would be better, but that doesn't necessarily make it the correct modification. Besides, making the engines more tolerant of a lack of oxygen may allow for other benefits, such as higher max altitude and better stall tolerance (just ass-pulling here). Maybe that's part of why they picked the route they did.
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there's a movement called deinstitutionalisation to stop locking people...
In the US, deinstitutionalization was on balance probably bad, because it put a lot of mentally ill people out on the street.
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yes...
few countries managed to do it right.
it isn't "let's close these institutions and send everyone home".
it requires a lot of distributed institutions to manage the patients that were previously in the asylums. and places to intern the ones who can't be deinstitutionalized(the less of them, the better, but you can't release everyone).related but not to use as part of the argument for deinstitunationalization because it's a fiction: I only came to use the phone one of the best works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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@Steve_The_Cynic said:
Also: the special modifications required to properly cope with the gun exhaust (not just the smoke, mind) causing flameouts were NOT made. Instead, they hand-waved it by modifying the engines to be more resistant to flameouts in the absence of oxygen.
So they didn't make modifications, they made modifications?
Sigh. Learn to read properly. They didn't make the proper modifications. They made handwaving substitute modifications. (The proper modifications would have been similar to the F/A-18's gas extractor system.)
@Steve_The_Cynic said:
(The correct modifications would have made sure the gun exhaust didn't actually get into the engines...)
If it works, it works. You can claim that your proposed modification would be better, but that doesn't necessarily make it the correct modification. Besides, making the engines more tolerant of a lack of oxygen may allow for other benefits, such as higher max altitude and better stall tolerance (just ass-pulling here). Maybe that's part of why they picked the route they did.
The A-10 is a close air support ground-attack plane. What aspect of that role suggests that a higher max altitude would be useful? Stall, in general, is a function of the wings and other lifting surfaces, not the engines, although "compressor stall" can be an issue. That, of course, tends to be fixed by better intake geometry. No, the way I read it, the fix they chose was the result of cheapskatery on the part of the Air Force.
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@abarker said:
If it works, it works. You can claim that your proposed modification would be better, but that doesn't necessarily make it the correct modification. Besides, making the engines more tolerant of a lack of oxygen may allow for other benefits, such as higher max altitude and better stall tolerance (just ass-pulling here). Maybe that's part of why they picked the route they did.
The A-10 is a close air support ground-attack plane. What aspect of that role suggests that a higher max altitude would be useful? Stall, in general, is a function of the wings and other lifting surfaces, not the engines, although "compressor stall" can be an issue. That, of course, tends to be fixed by better intake geometry. No, the way I read it, the fix they chose was the result of cheapskatery on the part of the Air Force.Added a bit of emphasis to my quote there.
Now, I still suspect that there are other reasons beyond cost that the applied solution was selected. As a close air support ground-attack (ASGA) platform, the A-10 is likely to be in situations where poor air quality may be an issue. For example, it is likely that there will be fires on the ground in a war zone due to any number of causes. Those fires will likely be putting off smoke, creating poor air quality. Depending on the positioning of the A-10's target in relation to surrounding environs, size of nearby smoke sources, etc., this could pose a measurable risk. However, the modifications that were made to compensate for the exhaust from the GAU-8 Avenger would help compensate for these risks. Would other modifications have had the same benefit? Maybe, maybe not. But without sitting down with the engineers involved and asking why they used the solution they did, you can't say they picked the wrong one.
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just ass-pulling here
Speaking of which, according to Wikipedia they just turn the engine igniters on while the gun is firing. I read that as, "If the engines go out due to lack of oxygen in the gun exhaust, they'll reignite as soon as it stops firing (we hope)."
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@Steve_The_Cynic said:
@abarker said:
If it works, it works. You can claim that your proposed modification would be better, but that doesn't necessarily make it the correct modification. Besides, making the engines more tolerant of a lack of oxygen may allow for other benefits, such as higher max altitude and better stall tolerance (just ass-pulling here). Maybe that's part of why they picked the route they did.
The A-10 is a close air support ground-attack plane. What aspect of that role suggests that a higher max altitude would be useful? Stall, in general, is a function of the wings and other lifting surfaces, not the engines, although "compressor stall" can be an issue. That, of course, tends to be fixed by better intake geometry. No, the way I read it, the fix they chose was the result of cheapskatery on the part of the Air Force.Added a bit of emphasis to my quote there.
Now, I still suspect that there are other reasons beyond cost that the applied solution was selected. As a close air support ground-attack (ASGA) platform, the A-10 is likely to be in situations where poor air quality may be an issue. For example, it is likely that there will be fires on the ground in a war zone due to any number of causes. Those fires will likely be putting off smoke, creating poor air quality. Depending on the positioning of the A-10's target in relation to surrounding environs, size of nearby smoke sources, etc., this could pose a measurable risk. However, the modifications that were made to compensate for the exhaust from the GAU-8 Avenger would help compensate for these risks. Would other modifications have had the same benefit? Maybe, maybe not. But without sitting down with the engineers involved and asking why they used the solution they did, you can't say they picked the wrong one.
OK, perhaps, but the source where I read about this said that it was a question of the cost of backfitting the machinery etc. (for venting the gun exhaust gases somewhere where they won't go into the engines) into the planes that were already in service. The Air Force recognised that it was a better solution than messing with the igniters, but it wasn't enough better to justify the cost. A similar system was designed into the F/A-18 from the beginning, so there wasn't any backfit cost.And once again, the smoke itself (suspended particles) isn't the issue. The problem with letting the engines inhale gun exhaust is that gun exhaust contains no oxygen except the little bit that mixes in while the exhaust is travelling from the front of the plane, where the gun is, to the back of the plane, where the engines are.
Also, don't cite "operation while manoeuvering" for this gun. The A-10 isn't intended to do air-to-air combat with its gun. It carries Sidewinders for air-to-air defence, but the gun is meant for straight-line firing, generally in bursts of maybe half a second (to conserve ammo - it carries a lot of rounds, but the gun is very hungry).
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Time gentlemen please: parking limits on notorious A40 lay-bys used to meet up for sex
NOTORIOUS spots used for sexual encounters on the A40 could have restrictions imposed to limit parking to 30 minutes.
NOTORIOUS spots used for sexual encounters on the A40 could have restrictions imposed to limit parking to 30 minutes.
I would have thought that would have been more than sufficient.
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MP Ron Mark uttered a barely audible swear word in the House, but viewers watching Parliament TV's sign language interpreter were left in no doubt about what was said.
[...]
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Man Shocked To Bump Into His Dog On Train Ride To Work
"He just looked at me as if he was saying 'Where are you going?'"
Dog ,left at home, inexplicably joins master on train, turns out he'd been doing this in the garden:
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that is adorable!
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At least it's Halal
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And fresh.
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bursts of maybe half a second (to conserve ammo - it carries a lot of rounds, but the gun is very hungry)
That ever-reliable source of information, Wikipedia, claims the reason for firing short bursts (1 – 2 seconds) is to prolong the life of the barrels. The gun is capable of firing its entire load of ammo in a single burst (~17.7 sec), but doing so would shorten the life of the barrels, requiring more frequent inspection and replacement.
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The impracticalities of cosplay:
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What happens when the person who's the back of the horse needs to go?
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It would make the cosplay a lot more realistic.
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Pleased you didn't include an image on this post.
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Sounds reasonable. Even in small arms, barrels get hot and heat isn't good for them if you want them to last and/or be accurate. It's quite common for rifle shooters to limit themselves to one round per minute so it stays cool.
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i can't find a source on it but ISTR it being claimed that the short firing bursts was also to minimize recoil damage to the airframe and to prevent the aircraft from stalling as the recoul force exceeded maximum trhust from its engines.
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Wasn't the maximum thrust thing pointed out upthread? Or in a different one? Sometime soon after I posted a picture of a hateful machine parked next to a big gun, IIRC.
Either way, that argument makes a lot of sense, from a basic physics standpoint at least. And I know it's not so much of an issue on aircraft, but short-burst fire is usually more accurate too.
Edit: It was here
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the recoul force exceeded maximum trhust from its engines.
It exceeds the maximum thrust from a single engine, not both. In practical use, it does slow the aircraft by "a few miles per hour," but not significantly. If you could fire continuously for more than a few seconds (ammo is gone in <20), it might be a bigger issue.
minimize recoil damage to the airframe
I don't remember seeing that.
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hysteria - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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