Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

Let's hope it goes better than their escapades in the tank-building sphere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank



What you're seeing there is literally a tractor with corrugated iron roofing material stuck on, to make a "tank". There are probably handguns that could pierce that thing's armour.

It was decided that a 'tractor-tank' would be an adequate design, as if the need for defense arose, a large tank superstructure could be bolted upon a tractor base within a few hours, allowing for quick transformation and deployment of the tanks.

e.g. they thought it was handy since you can keep farming with the tractors right up to just before they're needed for battle then tack some armor and guns on, and bob's your uncle. If they could also train sheep as panzer grenadiers then NZ's panzer divisions would have been unstoppable.

[martinuzz]

Haha that tank. It would fit right in with a WH40k Ork army. With a bit more spikes perhaps.
<mental image of Maori warriors screaming WAAAAAAAAGH>

[Reelya]

Due to the lack of armour plate, corrugated (manganese) plating was used in the expectation it would deflect bullets. The crew of eight included one gunner who had to lie on a mattress on top of the engine to fire his Bren gun.

Shit, they had a mattress in there. It's basically the first shagwagon.

The tanks were constructed without the use of any formal plans or blueprints. Working from an American postcard depicting the conversion of a tractor to a 'tractor-tank',

And shit, it's definitely an Ork Mekaniak style invention. They designed it based on a postcard!

(BTW it's spelled Maori)

[wierd]

Let's hope it goes better than their escapades in the tank-building sphere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank



What you're seeing there is literally a tractor with corrugated iron roofing material stuck on, to make a "tank". There are probably handguns that could pierce that thing's armour.

It was decided that a 'tractor-tank' would be an adequate design, as if the need for defense arose, a large tank superstructure could be bolted upon a tractor base within a few hours, allowing for quick transformation and deployment of the tanks.

e.g. they thought it was handy since you can keep farming with the tractors right up to just before they're needed for battle then tack some armor and guns on, and bob's your uncle. If they could also train sheep as panzer grenadiers then NZ's panzer divisions would have been unstoppable.

If they did it right, they could have used the sheep as suicide shock troopers.

Here's the skinny:

Wear enemy uniforms when feeding the sheep.
Replace the sheep bells with live grenades
Pins in grenades get removed via a pullstring, activating the time delay fuse.

When sheep see enemy soldiers, they thing "FOOD TIME!" and bum-rush the infantry. When that happens, they run away from their staked area, which pulls the pins. They begin exploding when they get in proximity of the enemy infantry.

The infantry would never suspect the little bleating balls of fluff rushing at them as being deadly guided ordinance.

[Eric Blank]

They can also train keas to drop grenades on replicas of enemy vehicles and steal equipment from enemy soldiers for a reward.

Shove a remote detonated c4 pack up a kiwi birds ass and let it roam near the enemy base. Itll just look like a female with a developing egg, still adorable. Then it explodes

Guerrilla warfare in kiwiland would be interesting to say the least.

[Starver]

Haha that tank. It would fit right in with a WH40k Ork army. With a bit more spikes perhaps.

More Dakka.

(Everyone needs More Dakka. All the time.)


For a(n indiginous) first-generation design, they probably weren't that bad. They were probably going to be as effective as various LDV ideas, over in Blighty, against their hypothetical opponents. (See and...)  Would have been a stop-gap/buffer for a concerted defence, only.

[Egan_BW]

;_; can we go back to talking about rockets now

[sluissa]

They certainly have the small sat launcher market beat at the moment, if they can actually make it to orbit. (This particular one did not.) But their payload at the moment is only around 220 kilograms... compare that to falcon 9's 13,000 kilograms.

That's almost 60x the payload on a falcon 9.

Electron rocket costs about $23,000 per kilogram.
Falcon 9 costs about $7,692 per kilogram.

Now for an extremely specialized mini satellite that has to go into a weird orbit for some reason and simply CAN'T share a rocket with another sat. Okay, fine. But for everyone else that doesn't mind carpooling. Falcon 9 is still the way to go. They also have to compete with things like the Pegasus. A very successful design that already works well, and could likely have its price dropped to compete with things like the Electron and it still carries almost double what Electron does.

Electron might have niched itself out of any sort of viable market by making their launcher so small.

Still, any competition in the market is good. So I hope they do well. I just don't have much hope.

[Reelya]

;_; can we go back to talking about rockets now

Ok, tractor rockets:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2477079/Photographs-Free-Syrian-Army-fighters-firing-home-rockets-Assad-forces-tractor.html

[martinuzz]

Spies using the internet to collect data and spy on others might need to start looking for alternatives.
A team of researchers from the TU Delft will publish a paper in SCIENCE tomorrow which might make completely secure internet connections reality, using the power of quantum mechanics.

In the article the team of Ronald Hanson of TU Delft, and partners from Oxford university give an example of how quantum internet could look like in practical application. The great strenght of quantum networking lies in that it is impossible to intercept the signal to listen in on it. The observation would instantly destroy the information carried. So far the main problem has been that is was deemed impossible to get the signal amplified enough to make it from sender to reciever.

With normal glass fibre signal transmission, the signal is measured, amplified and rerouted between nodes until it reaches it's destination. This is not possible with quantum signals, because measuring would break the quantum state.

What the Delft team has accomplished, is that instead of measuring and amplifying, they copy the unobserved quantum bits into a diamond raster. Experiments in the lab show that this diamond raster establishes ever improving connection with other diamond rasters in the network. Weak signals are filtered out.

Carlo Beenakker, quantumphysicist from Leiden university, himself not involved in the research paper, says "the paradox is that you have to blindfold yourself to be able to amplify the signal correctly. A metaphorical description of the process would be 'destillation'. By continously repeating the procedure, the end product gets stronger and stronger."
He adds "What's interesting is that the Delft team's experiment took place within a chip-like system. We could already do this with light, but electronics are much closer to practical applications in telecommunication".

So far, the network experiments of Delft University only show it's effectiveness over a few meters. However, according to team leader Hanson, upscaling is very much possible. The same Hanson showed in earlier experiments on the TU Delft campus that quantum connections can easily reach several kilometers, as predicted by Einstein.

The work on unbreakable quantum connections is part of a larger project of, amongst others, the university of Amsterdam, university of Leiden, university of Delft and university of the Hague. Last year, the dutch government granted an additional 19 million euros to the project.
One of the project's aims is to have the first experimental, working quantum internet in the world, between the participating universities, within 5 years. They will make use of existing fibre optic networks, supplemented with new quantum nodes.
Dutch telecom company KPN and the ministry of Defense are following the project with great interest.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/spionnen-opgelet-er-wordt-gewerkt-aan-een-volledig-onafluisterbaar-internet~a4498404/

[Sheb]

What habbened to the old scienc ethread?

[Sergarr]

What habbened to the old scienc ethread?

AI revolution. We've quarantined the place, to avoid it spreading further.

[TheBiggerFish]

@martinuzz: Now that's !!SCIENCE!!.

(Take that, NSA!)

(Hey, how does this network work?)

[Starver]

(Hey, how does this network work?)

(Like a net..?)

[ChairmanPoo]

a discussion about breast cancer turned into an allout flamewar and led to a threadlock.

I think it should rate as some kimd of achievement.


... for the record, there is a rumor about two contemporary myeloproliferative neoplasm gurus  engaging in a fistfight over the ideal monitoring protocol for chronic myelogenous leukemia. So there are precedents.