The Sudden Curve

Operation Cat Drop

This is not supposed to be an Urban Legend, but Wikipeda says it is "of uncertain veracity."

DDT is great for killing skeeters, but in Africa apparently it killed tiny wasps that ate catepillars. So the catepillars ate thatched roofs and caused them to collapse.

Then DDT collected in the rats and killed the cats that ate the rats. So the British had to bring in about 13,000 new cats to kill the rats. Some say they were parachuted. Maybe not. But apparently it's a true story.

Posted by Bob Wallace, who prefers pugs to cats, because cats are EVIL!!!

 

The Real Yoda

The movie guy has nothing on a pug when he comes to tormenting people.

Posted by Bob Wallace, who has a pug...or maybe he has me.

Project Orion

I first heard about Project Orion in college when I read John McPhee's "The Curve of Binding Energy. Launching 200-ton spaceships by dropping atomic bombs out of the bottom. Oh man!

Jerry Pournelle, who is still a supporter of it, once wrote a novel, "King David's Spaceship," about it.

If we had gone with it, we'd have colonies on the Moon...Mars...spacestations. But as usual, the people in the government are idiots.

Posted by Bob Wallace, who is still annoyed he has no flying car and a blaster.

 

 

The Battle of Hampton Roads

That was the real name but everyone calls it "the Monitor and the Merrimac."

It was of course the coolest sea battle of all time.

Wikepedia has the story:

The Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack (or Merrimac), was the most noted and arguably most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies. It was fought over two days, March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginia's largest cities, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade.

The major significance of the battle is that it was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships. The Confederate fleet consisted of the ironclad ram CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) and several supporting vessels. On the first day of battle, they were opposed by several conventional, wooden-hulled ships of the Union Navy. On that day, Virginia was able to destroy two ships of the Federal flotilla and was about to attack a third, USS Minnesota, which had run aground. However, the action was halted by darkness and falling tide, so Virginia retired to take care of her few wounded — which included her captain, Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan — and repair her minimal battle damage.

Determined to complete the destruction of the Minnesota, Catesby ap Roger Jones, acting as captain in Buchanan's absence, returned the ship to the fray the next morning, March 9. During the night, however, the ironclad USS Monitor had arrived and had taken a position to defend Minnesota. When Virginia approached, Monitor intercepted her. The two ironclads fought for about three hours, with neither being able to inflict significant damage on the other. The duel ended indecisively, Virginia returning to her home at the Gosport Navy Yard for repairs and strengthening, and Monitor to her station defending Minnesota. The ships did not fight again, and the blockade remained in place.

The battle received worldwide attention, and it had immediate effects on navies around the world. The preeminent naval powers, Great Britain and France, halted further construction of wooden-hulled ships, and others followed suit. A new type of warship was produced, the monitor, based on the principle of the original. The use of a small number of very heavy guns, mounted so that they could fire in all directions was first demonstrated by Monitor but soon became standard in warships of all types. Shipbuilders also incorporated rams into the designs of warship hulls for the rest of the century.

Posted by Bob Wallace, who sez, when I was a kid this was taught in school.