Quotulatiousness

April 9, 2011

Someone deserves a medal here

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:57

If this Guardian report is true, I hope that Royston Smith is on the next honours list:

Southampton city council leader, Royston Smith, was visiting the submarine with other dignitaries while it was berthed at the Eastern Docks on a five-day visit to the city.

He described how he “wrestled” the gunman to the ground in the submarine’s control room as he tried to stop him.

“Two shots were fired, straight after he entered the control room again and began shooting again,” Smith told the BBC.

“I ran towards him, I pushed him against the wall, we wrestled to take the gun from him. He fired again, I wrestled again to get the weapon from him. I pushed him to another wall, I wrestled him to the ground and managed to take the weapon away from him then others came to help to restrain him.”

He said a group of schoolchildren had left the submarine shortly before the attack.

That’s a civilian, charging a gunman armed with a battle rifle, and disarming him before the trained military personnel could intervene. There are very few people who could have reacted so quickly — and correctly — in that situation. That’s heroism.

Rare WW2 German bomber discovered off British coast

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:32

What may be the only intact example of the German Dornier 17 bomber has been discovered in the Goodwin Sands off the coast of Kent:

The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.


Image from Reuters

Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.

[. . .]

Known as “the flying pencil,” the Dornier 17 was designed as a passenger plane in 1934 and was later converted for military use as a fast bomber, difficult to hit and theoretically able to outpace enemy fighter aircraft.

In all, some 1,700 were produced but they struggled in the war with a limited range and bomb load capability and many were scrapped afterwards.

Striking high-resolution images appear to show that the Goodwin Sands plane suffered only minor damage, to its forward cockpit and observation windows, on impact.

“The bomb bay doors were open, suggesting the crew jettisoned their cargo,” said PLA spokesman Martin Garside.

H/T to Elizabeth for the link.

Latest poll: Liberals up, NDP down

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:22

The Liberals appear to the party primarily benefitting from a slackening in NDP support:

QotD: “In terms of outcomes — the greatest individual Liberty for the greatest number — Canada is a FAR more Libertarian country than the United States”

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:07

As a conscious, de jure Libertarian; and antiauthoritarian to the very core of my being — I have more than once observed that in terms of outcomes — the greatest individual Liberty for the greatest number — Canada is a FAR more Libertarian country than the United States.

You see — and you will find this point made in core libertarian writings — liberty requires social infrastructure in order to ensure basic, common wants; otherwise those wants and needs can be and WILL be used by the minority against the majority to reduce them to a state of permanent serfdom.

Unless you can afford to say “take this job and shove it,” you are not free. Arguably, it should not be a trivial step, without consequence, but it absolutely MUST be possible — or you are not living in a free society.

Likewise, there must be robust regulations and vigilant guardians watching over the markets and the commons, so that — well, so that what is happening in economic terms in the US and Europe, does not happen. And in Canada, that is the case. Canada has not abandoned regulatory oversight of critical industries in order to pander to would be Madoffs and Enrons and the result is more — not less — economic opportunity and practical liberty for more people.

But US Libertarians are of the opinion that Liberty is the same as License. It is a movement of the self-indulgent, those who cry that “I have mine, and you are a luser who deserves nothing from me.”

Bob King, “Basement Bunker Libertarians”, Graphictruth, 2009-04-30

This week in Guild Wars 2 news

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:05

I’ve been accumulating news snippets about the as-yet-to-be-formally-scheduled release of Guild Wars 2 for an email newsletter I send out to my friends and acquaintances in the Guild Wars community.

A slow week, compared to the last few weeks.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

Part 2: Guild Wars news

  • Game update: “Removed all things that can’t be processed with a normal brain:
    – Non-tiger creatures with tiger blood
    – Red Rock Candy from Mars
    – Warlocks”

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

  • A glowing review of the Thief profession. “Yes, she just dragged him over here like Scorpion. Yes, he just teleported to where he shot his arrow. Yes, her dagger just hit three enemies at once, and YES he just went invis, stole a branch off a treant and then used it to beat down an ogre. Show me another MMO with a class that looks and plays like this, and I’ll give you a cookie. Not some healthy little Snackwells cookie either, one of those big soft mushy ones like you get in a combo meal at Subway. If Guild Wars 2 wasn’t on your MMO radar before (I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be) it had better be now. And for all you WoW Rogues out there who are tired of herp derping around throwing fans of knives, I think you’ve found your true calling.”
  • Part 2 of the interview with Daniel Dociu. “It is satisfying to see one of your concept materialize, but it is even more satisfying to see your concept elaborated on and improved upon. And that’s what’s very important to me and something I keep repeating, especially to the young artists who join us. A good modeler is capable of delivering ‘spot on’ and staying very true to a concept — a great modeler, though, is capable of building upon it. Taking a concept as a starting point and bringing their own contribution. Looking at it with a critical eye; dissect it, analyze it, understand it, form an opinion or attitude towards it and then add that layer of your own to the concept. It is extremely satisfying to me when I see a concept of mine brought to a level I wasn’t capable of seeing or anticipating.”
  • Part 3 of the Daniel Dociu interview. “Some people may have the artistic inclination and the creativity but lack the drive or ability of hard work and sustained intensity over four years of school. At the end of four years education, there is only a fraction of students who present themselves as a complete package with a convincing body of work (both quality and quantity wise) who would indeed stand a good chance in the very competitive job market. Everyone else may struggle a great deal, and it’s heart breaking for me as a parent to see all these kids misled into believing it’ll be a walk in the park.”
  • Horia Dociu talks about putting the Commando April Fool content together. “One day, while working on some of the previous Guild Wars 2 skill videos, I thought about how I’d love to see a SWAT team taking out charr with assault rifles and how much fun it would be to make that video. Then it clicked: April Fools’ Day would be my only opportunity to do that, so I had to make it happen!”
  • Video interview with Colin Johanson, part 1. “We caught up with Guild Wars 2 lead content designer Colin Johanson to discuss the upcoming MMORPG. In this the first part of the interview we discuss World of Warcraft, the event system and story.”
  • Part 2 of the Colin Johanson interview. “Our interview with Arenanet’s Colin Johanson continues and this time we talk about such diverse matters as the new Silvari race and the keg brawl mini”
  • Those sneaky, sneaky Skritt. “Skritt are small, rat-like creatures in Guild Wars 2 who come from deep beneath the surface of Tyria. At first glance, these skittering fur balls may seem barely capable of rational speech, but they wield weapons and wear clothing and armor like more advanced races. Also, as the asura will tell you (or as any careful observer might note), the skritt actually gain intelligence when many of them congregate. Speaking in chirps and squeaks so fast that it sounds like buzzing to human ears, they share information, parse knowledge, and determine actions between themselves. The more skritt there are to do so, the more rational, intelligent, and cunning their activities become. One skritt alone is a simple-minded individual, capable of performing basic tasks and keeping himself alive, but an entire colony of hundreds? Clever enough to challenge even the brainpower of the asura.”

Upheaval in Finnish politics?

Filed under: Europe, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:03

Ilkka is enjoying the spectacle of the “right-thinking” (i.e., left-thinking) folks in Finland who are horrified at the rise of a new party:

Canada will have yet another federal election that will bring yet another minority government, and back in the old country, the parliamentary elections have begun with the first early voting days, and the right-wing protest party True Finns is predicted to grab a significant chunk of the parliamentary seats. The impotent tantrum of the SWPL greens and leftists, along with the media that they still mostly control, reacting to the cognitive dissonance of the working class abandoning them has certainly been a laugh riot. Besides, this whole surge illustrates how just one voice of just the right pitch can smash a sufficiently ossified, smug and complacent echo chamber to little shards of glass by its mere existence. One can only imagine what the Finland of the 1970’s would have been like, had the Internet existed back then to give these voices a voice, as all leftism and progressivism can keep the reality at bay only if they get to have a totalitarian control of all media to constrain the parameters of debate.

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