Rick Scott 🇨🇦

YouTube video by iHearCanvas Inspector Gadget

omg this was totally me yesterday 😆
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGbV...

the country literally coined a word for "death from overwork" (過労死, karōshi)

whatever problems Japan has, "not enough hours at the office" is not one of them

I feel the need to state for the record that despite having been drunk in several european countries, I somehow escaped without any tattoos, let alone a freaky racist one

like this wasn't a "buddy with a tattoo gun draws a cross on your knuckle" deal, he was sat in that chair for some time

Time for 2025 updates to my annual “opinions about solar” thread. If you like these, you might like the second edition of my book, Solar Power Finance Without The Jargon. A 30% discount code WSQ0437 is valid on publisher website until end of November 2025.

www.worldscientific.com/worldscibook...

rough translation:

Dear community, the decision for the youth word of 2025 has been made. The winner is: "Das crazy".

This expression is used to emphasize that something is "krass" (amazing, awesome, phat).

For example...if I were to start a rap career just now. 😎

omg the Tagesschau presenter looooool 🤣
bsky.app/profile/uk.d...

For the sixth year in a row, an English word has been voted German Youth Word of the Year: "Das crazy"

'That's crazy' (used when someone doesn't know what to say/doesn't feel like responding/wants to remain polite) topped an online vote, narrowly beating "goonen" and "checkst du".

100% agree. and the USMC has already opened an investigation.
bsky.app/profile/bafr...

as an aside: I'm glad I have the bit of artillery knowledge that I do. I just wish it wasn't coming in handy so goddamn often lately 🥲

nobody wants to work any more rah 😂

you are most welcome! 😊

and...oh ghod, I'm only super familiar with the range at Petawawa (and the one in Gaylord, MI, actually).

but afaik, the other places with artillery ranges are Gagetown, Valcartier, Meaford, Shilo, Suffield, and Wainwright. there might be more though 😅

it was 1994 to 1997 that I was in, and I'm told it was a while before that they quit doing it 😅

this is by far the most plausible explanation so far, btw.
bsky.app/profile/bafr...

same with field guns. if you dialed in a TOF that was too long, the fuze would function with PD action on impact.

field artillery here. only reason we'd ever prefer a Time fuze is if the target is somehow in deep defilade or surrounded by very tall trees that make VT rounds go off too high. so yeah, agree 100%

the real reason we got Time fuzes is that they were like half the price of VT, lol

Which is why I previously stated that shutting down the 5 was a further risk reduction measure. Told by reliable source Pendleton’s firing points all east of the 5. Only reason for overhead fires of the 5 is if one demo’s objectives was to show VIPs Marines landing and placing battery into action.

For a 155mm shell to explode prematurely isn't exceptionally rare, it's a thing that happens sometimes. Which is why you don't fire them over civilian freeways for shits and giggles.

you can see why I'm absolutely gobsmacked by today's turn of events. thank God the freeway was closed and nobody was injured. this kind of thing beyond reckless. it is unthinkable to anyone with a conscience.

in training missions where we engaged targets close to civilian areas, we would "creep" rounds closer bit by bit, rather than risk overcorrecting and hitting something else.

we'd rather put our own lives at risk, than drop a round on someone we didn't mean to.

despite all the safety precautions outlined above, there's still risk of a round not making it all the way to its target. and for what? what reward supposedly justified that risk?

I cannot think of any plausible, rational reason to be firing artillery rounds over the heads of anyone in peacetime. it truly beggars belief.

in Petawawa, as I understand it, we stopped doing fire missions across Highway 17 *decades* ago, after someone managed to bounce a round off the pavement. 😱

we are still waiting for more details on what fuze the rounds were fitted with, and what the reason for the early detonation might be.

needless to say, I am Very VERY curious as to what the "Lessons Learned" after-action report is going to look like. 🤬

(to explain: VT is a "Variable Time" fuze. it that produces an airburst, exploding when the round is ~7m above ground. it uses a small onboard radar to detect proximity to things, but it only arms a few seconds before reaching its target.)

a fuze failure -- in the sense of a mechanical flaw with the fuze itself -- is Very Very Rare.

the most common fuze "problem" is a VT fuze going off too early. but even so, that usually happens in the immediate vicinity of the target when there is a hill or other vertical feature nearby.

thankfully, this does not seem to be what happened. instead, it *sounds* from early reports like a round cooked off in midair, well above the freeway.

this would be consistent with I've seen in the news so far -- that shrapnel bits rained down from a height, as opposed to just above the ground.

A few stacks of 155mm propellant charge bags: green (M3A1), white (M4A2), red (M119A2), and super (M203A1).

if those charges get wet, or even damp, that's a good way to have a round drop short.

155mm charges are usually stored in cylindrical canisters that make them less vulnerable to this than 105mm ammunition. still, why take the risk by firing over a highway if there's no need?

155mm ammunition, showing two projectiles (shells) along with an assortment of cylindrical propelling charges -- some green, some white.

when I first heard about this, my first thought was "god damn, I sure hope those charge bags don't get damp".

155mm is separate-loading ammunition. the shell, the propellant charge (powder) bags, and the primer are all loaded separately.

it absolutely beggars belief that anyone would consider firing over an Interstate freeway in peacetime. the risk/reward calculation simply is not there.

ammunition and charges are manufactured to very high standards. they are quite consistent and include an impressive array of safety features. for instance, the fuze cannot arm without the round having been fired out of the gun, travelled a certain distance, etc.

all this said...