Single Random Facts

To return to the subject of random facts –

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

10 Likes

And Nelson’s Column is still there.

2 Likes

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Really! It’s not like anything changed after @duaneiac ’s post. And that’s a fact.

3 Likes

You know some facts, people?

Yeah, cause I got some.

(i) “Obsidian” (a program) will update automatically in blah blah days and bunch of bs.

(ii) “Discord” (a program) will update all the damn time.

Fact three. Get your stuff together, nimrods of the great plains. Your latest weekly “update” is great.

These are toy programs. Nobody gives AF about security “patches” or whatever, or not many people.

Laughably absurd advertising is a fact, like product placement in TVs or phones or whatever.

Like…I don’t know what. Wearing a codpiece.

2 Likes

English-speakers call the country in the middle of Europe Germany, the French call it Allemagne, the Finnish call it Saksa, the Poles call it Niemcy, and the people who live there call Deutschland.

To top it off, the Lakota Sioux call it Iyášiča Makȟóčhe, which means “Bad Speaker Land.”

6 Likes

They’ve all called it a lot of other things too.

3 Likes

I bet the Lakota have always called it that.

3 Likes

The US Air Force’s F-15 Streak Eagle was a stripped, pre-production model sans weapons and their mounts, advanced avionics, radar, tail hook, flap and speed brakes.

Even the paint was left off for its flights, and it was only painted after it went on display as a museum piece (bare metal doesn’t weather well).

Doing all this, and a little more, helped save 2,800 pounds, and along with a doubled fuel capacity, broke records held by previous aircraft, and then…

out climbed a Saturn V rocket by 10 seconds !

5 Likes

As a bonus fact, an F-15 can be landed with one wing missing.

4 Likes

8 Likes

All right then, you do it. I’ll be busy filling my poopie suit.

7 Likes

The A-10 Thunderbolt asks the Eagle to hold their beer:

“it is designed to be able to fly with one engine, half of the tail, one elevator, and half of a wing missing.”

Both aircraft have survived and been piloted to incredible feats:

1 Like

Proof once again that with enough velocity, control authority, and processing power that even a brick can be made to fly.

3 Likes

In WWII the original Thunderbolt the P-47 was legendarily tough as well. On more than one occasion a P-47 made it back to base with an entire cylinder from its engine shot away. And one time a P-47 was damaged in a dogfight but the canopy was jammed so the pilot couldn’t bail out so he decided to limp it home. A German FW-190 spotted the plane and attacked it from behind since it was unable to maneuver well. The German plane emptied its large caliber machineguns and cannons into the thing but it still refused to go down. The German pilot then just came alongside the Thunderbolt, the pilot saluted, and then it left him to fly home.

4 Likes

Speaking of WWII stories, here’s the story of a B-17 that was escorted home by a German pilot.

6 Likes

TIL that, despite remembering the contrary, one of everyone’s favorites, the Warthog continues to be in service, and will be for some time.

AND the AC-130J gunship still exists and is in service. Did not know that either, although I have seen fairly recently a flyover including the transport version of the plane.

Also: single random fact I recall from ten years ago, despite not having written anything since then…initialize every pointer!!!. Yes, that was made very, very clear. An array of pointers that you’re making, whatever, doesn’t matter. Every single time.

/* Note…I am not saying that was necessarily the Crowdstrike issue. It does seem that a simple pointer to null was not the issue — apparently some X person started some kind of prank post about this yesterday — but it is somehow related to initializing a pointer to a valid memory address. One may not ever know, exactly, but it is still kind of fun to look at the version produced by disassembling…I’m sure the mnemonics are correct, but who knows about which address was improper. */

2 Likes

Some kind of old prop plane bomber thing was flying over the house today doing circles around the county, apparently. We have an Air National Guard here, so I’m not shocked.

2 Likes

They fly around my house all the time, I see them almost every day. I also get all the air shows free because we live so close to the base; my favorites are the generational flights, where you get to see aircraft from at least three generations flying together in formation.

4 Likes

21 posts were split to a new topic: Canada, what were you thinking? Bad Canadian Sit-Coms

There’s a company in Indianapolis that makes custom vinyl records for bands that contain things like liquid and sand (and even weirder stuff) inside two sides of a transparent playable 33 1/3 disc. They did a blood-filled record for Motley Crüe, a fly-filled record for Alice in Chains, a ring-filled record for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie soundtrack and other weird stuff. One even has scorpions inside it!

image

5 Likes