Hammer Time

No, not this one – more like this… Item: Navy ship $840 million over budget and still unfinished (h/t Phibian) — The highly touted  nerve center of the new, $1.8 billion amphibious ship San Antonio is fraught with computer hardware crashes that could cripple operations.  The ship lacks basic safety equipment, such as hand rails and…

Fight’s On!

  The Government of India (finally) tendered it’s offer for the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) – a deal estimated at $10B and one of the largest of it’s kind offered.  Plan is to purchase a total of 128 with the first 18 bought in a "flyaway condition" to equip the first squadron.  The remaining 108 will…

Weekend Notes

Quick note to pass along that VAJoe.com has an interview of Your Humble Scribe up at his site.  Try not to laugh too hard… The rains (and oppressive humidity) have relented so with blue skies in the offing, believe it’s time to hit the roads for the mountains of WVa with the family – in…

Welcome to the Digital Age – You’re Busted

Comes this way a new tool from the fertile minds at Google – Street views. Google mapping teams hit five cities (New York, Miami, Denver, Las Vegas and San Francisco) with specially designed vans, to take panoramic imagery along the streets to give one a three-dimensional view along the metropolitan highways and byways. In capturing…

Factory fire in Russia sparks scare, rumors of atomic plant explosion

In an area of the world where memories of Chernobyl are not a dim/receding thing of the past, it doesn’t take much to invoke immediate concern, if not panic: ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) — A fire broke out Monday at a Russian factory that makes equipment for atomic power plants, but there was no risk of…