The Workshops

[Horus Lupercal]

Might not be a good idea to draw any logo on the orange foam.

Or the SRBs

 

[8BitCosmonaut]

LOL.

My blacksmithing lessons were unfortunately cut short by coronavirus. I'll have to wait until the start of university year 2 now.

Me too man, same with my laser cutting and computer programming class.

 

[8BitCosmonaut]

The only thing i disagree with you over. Most wars aren't personal, they're business

Sorry about the last point, it was late yesterday so I rushed the final bit.

You can ignore some parts of the argument because some are just summaries and reiterations. Come to think of it, being out of action for 50 years is an insanely long time, hell after my exams, it only took me a few months for me to forget a lot of what I've learnt, let alone half a bloody century.

Did you read that NASA has re-introduced the Worm logo back as well?

I usually don't care about the logo, unless there is a serious sentimental reason behind it?

But hubris meant we backed off from one edge of human discovery to save some bucks spend more money elsewhere and now we're literally wasting billions of dollars, 10 years of development and still having to rape borrow kit from the STS to get back to where we were in 1973.

HAHA! Everyone at NASA are literally tech priests now, trying to find all of their lost tech.

 

[Horus Lupercal]

You can ignore some parts of the argument because some are just summaries and reiterations. Come to think of it, being out of action for 50 years is an insanely long time, hell after my exams, it only took me a few months for me to forget a lot of what I've learnt, let alone half a bloody century

I wouldn't say ignore, if I've not got any points good or bad then I'll not labour it. Most of what you said, summary or not I totally agreed with and couldn't / didn't need to expand on them. After all, some of it you have far more experience / knowledge of than I'll pretend to.

I usually don't care about the logo, unless there is a serious sentimental reason behind it?

It's the one they used after they sacked the apollo program. It's why i hope a NASA craft going the moon does not have that on the side.

Sorry about the last point, it was late yesterday so I rushed the final bit.

You can ignore some parts of the argument because some are just summaries and reiterations. Come to think of it, being out of action for 50 years is an insanely long time, hell after my exams, it only took me a few months for me to forget a lot of what I've learnt, let alone half a bloody century.


I usually don't care about the logo, unless there is a serious sentimental reason behind it?


HAHA! Everyone at NASA are literally tech priests now, trying to find all of their lost tech.

Pretty bloody much. They were literally raiding old RS-25s and unlocking the secrets of the STC for the F-1.

 

[8BitCosmonaut]

Pretty bloody much. They were literally raiding old RS-25s and unlocking the secrets of the STC for the F-1.

And the people who built the Saturn V are the Necrons.

 

[8BitCosmonaut]

WE ARE THE SONS OF DORN.

 

[Horus Lupercal]

WE ARE THE SONS OF DORN.

View attachment 35821

Fair play, that's one of the best suits of mk VII I've seen.

Even if it is worn by one of Stone Mans sons.

 

[8BitCosmonaut]

I think I found what I'm looking for.

 

[TtTOtW]

Sorry for the "radio silence" these past few days. I had some more thoughts on the "loss of technology" argument we had a while back, and at this point I might be beating on a dead horse. A few days back I was browsing Alibaba to look for manufacturers to custom make my engine parts, and noticed that other than CNC, old methods like lost-wax casting is still used today. Same with forging, welding, milling so on so forth.

Then I looked back at the Rocketdyne F-1, turns out most of the parts are also made with methods that are still used today, problem is, we forgot "how exactly". It's like making beef wellington, you have a veteran chef who have made those for years and developed his own tricks to get the job done effectively and efficiently, now give the same gear and supplies used by the veteran chef to a new chef, he wouldn't know how to make a beef wellington as good or at all even with the exact same equipment provided. Previously I thought everything was forgotten.

This contributes towards another unresolved problem with the argument that was our attitude towards manufacturing. So far there are three categories; past, present and future.

Past methods are forgotten because they were unfeasible for modern day large scale applications, say the elliptical wing.
Present methods are usually composed of past methods that are still very useful today, like many subtractive manufacturing methods.
Future methods are more advanced approaches like vacuum induction casting and computerized numeric machining control.

Right now we're gonna worry about the past and future, since that's what we're the most worried about, and since a certain individual insists laziness is the death of tech, and I'm having second thoughts. We have two approaches, that is preserving methodology and advancing methodology.

The preservation of methodology; if use of a methodology is obscure and limited (like the rocketdyne F-1 engine), it must be well documented to give future mantle takers an idea of how said method is carried out (something the engineers working on the Saturn V done poorly). If use of a methodology is widespread but is about to be replaced by a superior alteration, it must too be well documented or if possible, practiced (for example blacksmithing and spinning).

Our willingness to preserve a method is strictly dictated by our respect for it. We lost the know-how to build the F-1 because of our pride, our complacency, we were so full of ourselves when we beat the Reds that we neglected to remember, we disrespected it. Doesn't help that the higher ups cancelled or outright refused future deep space manned missions after Apollo.

The advancement of methodology; this sector strictly depends on our intelligence and past experience. We can't have CNC without NC, we can't have vacuum casting without die casting and we definitely can't advance without the geniuses down at R&D.

Advancement is innovation, innovation takes time, time needs passion. When you're passionate about something, being lazy will be the last thing on your mind. Laziness as a tech killer just doesn't add up.

Then there is war, which is caused by hatred.

No mate, i absolutely agree with most of this.

With the F-1, that's what i meant. We'd obviously not forgotten how to weld or forge or mill, we just had no idea how to forge F-1 parts and how they were welded together.

And you are right, we can't, because we don't because we haven't needed to for nearly 50 years for various, mostly political and financial, reasons.

Same with the wing shape of the elliptical wing on Spitfire. Now, I'm not saying that the wing or the engines are the peak of human ingenuity, far from it. I'm also not saying that we should specifically practice making enormous liquid fuel engines or curved sections of aluminium wing spar.

My point is that right now, 50-80 year old tech shouldn't be hard to make. What has happened is instead of the skill base widening to encompass everything ever made, there are gaps in places where there shouldn't be gaps.
There is almost no market for Spitfire wings outside of parts for the BBMF and a few re-enactors clubs. Same with F-1 engines, or coachworks etc

However, if the need arises, then it should be a case of going to a relevant workshop and saying 'mate, can you make me a aluminium spar/enormous rocket engine/moulded bodypanel to these specs' and the reply should be 'easy, gimme 20 minutes'. Not 'nah mate, no idea how we'd ever start doing that'.







Can't agree more about this and is the thing that makes me angriest about the whole scenario. If the company went bust or the building with the plans burnt down or it was 6000 years ago then I'd forgive them.
But hubris meant we backed off from one edge of human discovery to save some bucks spend more money elsewhere and now we're literally wasting billions of dollars, 10 years of development and still having to rape borrow kit from the STS to get back to where we were in 1973.

Did you read that NASA has re-introduced the Worm logo back as well?





The only thing i disagree with you over. Most wars aren't personal, they're business

Won't argue with good sense.

 

[8BitCosmonaut]

Pretty bloody much. They were literally raiding old RS-25s and unlocking the secrets of the STC for the F-1.

With that said, what is left of this debate?

We've discussed how far back we'll revert to realistically in the event of an apocalyptic scenario.

We've discussed how sloth is irrelevant as a tech killer.

We've discussed the unlikeliness of the death of knowledge with current factors.

We've yet to discuss the death of skill.

Before I begin, I would like to sub-quote Horus; automation is like war, rarely personal, mostly business. Companies adopted them not because they're personally lazy to mill things themselves, but because its fast, its cost effective in the long run and its safer.

Sure you can remove all the automation and fully depend on experienced skilled labor, but they're expensive and rare even in the past, you'll end up sitting around waiting for new employees to man the machines, especially with today's massive production demands, it would do far more harm than good.

Even if we're to cut our world population from 8 billion to 2 billion. We'll still struggle without automation.

About the Death of Skill? Recoverable.

Machinists work most of the time with manual machines especially in the beginning, if they're lucky, the company they're working for might have a CNC machine for them to work with. However, even if you take away the CNC from a CNC lathe, you'll get a lathe, and the machinist will still know how to use it because that's what he was taught with. Within a decade or less, he'll be able to redevelop his own unique set of skills for precise turning.

Take America during the cold war for example. The people working for the space program took their sweet time developing their rockets until the Soviets sent up Sputnik-1, at that time no one had any real experience nor the skill to outplay the Soviets. As the old saying goes, everybody gangsta till the sky starts beeping. Long story short, even with America far behind in rocket technology, they still managed to reach the moon first.

With that, I'm not worried about the loss of skill, because their practice is still very widespread amongst smaller factories and hobbyists who have no funds or no need for CNC. Plus it is recoverable, if we start with nothing, we can always develop it our own eventually. If we lose it, we can always rediscover it, albeit painstakingly.

This is nothing to lose hope over. Unless we start over-relying on AI, I don't want to write my view points on this topic, because Warhammer's Dark Age of Technology lore already covered many of my points well, plus its far more exciting.

 

[Chara-cter]

What's that part for?

 

[Horus Lupercal]

What's that part for?
View attachment 35975

Not a clue, I've never seen it before. Though it looks like it's attached to the trigger group, so could be messing with trigger pull weight.

Bloody weird looking trigger as well, if I'm honest.

 

[Chara-cter]

yey it's doneeeeeeee!
I only make the handguard cuz I don't have to make the receiver. I stole borrow the gun model from 3D Warehouse and replace its handguard with this one

 

[Horus Lupercal]

View attachment 35989

That picture is funny. She's not tall enough to reach the end of that handguard to use the offset foregrip properly.

 

[Chara-cter]

That picture is funny. She's not tall enough to reach the end of that handguard to use the offset foregrip properly.

She does in this pic

 

[Horus Lupercal]

She does in this pic

As long she can fire it like that...

 

[Horus Lupercal]

She can barely reach it on the second photo. And the rail is longer on the first photo than the second

 

[Horus Lupercal]

What's that part for?
View attachment 35975

That's her lower receiver as well...

 

[Horus Lupercal]

Here you go Cosmo. We're not totally regressing...

A talkthrough of a 600mph run and nose to tail Q+A on Bloodhound, taken by the 'driver' Andy Green

Probably one of the most interesting interviews I've ever seen, and not cos it's Top Gear. The guy is just there to give Andy Green someone to talk to.

A ex-fighter pilot with that typical pilot 'calm, measured' tone of voice, talking about the pinnacle of current British technology.

And the car can't be more British in mindset. He goes from talking about managing supersonic shock cones going over the drivers windscreen and being slowed to enter the engine inlet to the Bloodhound branded drinks bottle tied to the ballistic wheel arch shield being used an impromptu expansion tank. Switches pulled from black and decker drills being installed on a made for his hands 3D printed, titanium steering wheel.

And not just cos of how its built, but how he talks about it.

Listening to a fighter pilot, current land speed record holder, the only man on Earth ever to break the soundbarrier whilst being attached to the ground, talk matter of factly about all the details, ridiculous stats and tech on the car and then get giddy about just how much power this thing produces, should say everything you need to know about how much shunt this car has.

The bloody thing at the end of the shakedown sessions sits at the 4th fastest car ever run. It was still pulling at 15mph/s when he shut the turbine down at 600mph. He could've gone much, much faster. And did, cos the car gave him another 28mph (and almost put him in third place by accident) whilst winding down.

And that is only with 60% of the total available thrust this car will have in full run trim. Once that Nammo engine fires, this thing is just going to fuck off.

The best thing about Bloodhound though isn't the power, or the airflow or the wheels or the drinks bottle. My favourite part of the car is that there is absolutely no need for this car to exist. The creators already own the previous two LSRs. Andy Green is already the fastest man on the planet.

It exists for the purpose of itself. To hit the limits of what men can achieve, the benchmark for everything. And to prove that design and engineering can be cool as shit. This car is responsible for a massive uptake in students studying CAD and STEM in the UK. The associated education project (the car in entirely open source) has hit 2 million people during its life span. It's even sort of keeping the hippies happy (the more educated ones anyway) thanks to things like the rocket engine being zero emissions. The pump is battery powered and the exhaust produces nothing more than steam.
Oh, and an absolute fuck ton of thrust.

Its the closest thing to Concorde the 21st century has produced.

It stands purely as yet another RollsRoyce powered, Union Jack liveried, supersonic 'fuck you' to tertiary industry, career instagrammers and politics.

I fucking love this car.

 

[4KidsOneCamera]

I started working on a little spacecraft for a project for school. It is inspired by SFS parts, and I am about a hour or two into it. Going good so far!

 

[Blazer Ayanami]

View attachment 37298 I started working on a little spacecraft for a project for school. It is inspired by SFS parts, and I am about a hour or two into it. Going good so far!

Are you gonna build it for real?

 

[4KidsOneCamera]

Are you gonna build it for real?

I am thinking about maybe 3D printing it at some time, but I really haven’t thought too much about it.

 

[Chara-cter]

Someone on Discord posted their Aqua mag, saying it's as useless as Aqua (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't watched the anime) and it never loaded a round. Then I noticed something

 

[The Dark in the Light]

Someone on Discord posted their Aqua mag, saying it's as useless as Aqua (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't watched the anime) and it never loaded a round. Then I noticed something
View attachment 37648 View attachment 37649

XD He put the bullets in wrong!

 

[Horus Lupercal]

That must be satire. must be.

What a fucking retard.

I'm sorry, but how in all that is holy is someone who is allowed to purchase a firearm and has spent actual money on one so fucking stupid.

I'm getting tourettes just looking at this.

there is even a handy guide on the side of the magazine showing which way the pointy end is supposed to sit!

Not just that, but to push a 5,56mm round into a magazine facing the wrong way takes quite a bit of work. Doing it over and over and over again?

How about stopping with the loli girls, go back to the fucking range and learn how to use your weapon properly.

Fuck man.