I think the right is noticing it more here because this time, it's Biden trying to make something official out of his most unofficial declaration of victory.
Does anyone have an actual real certified tally of electoral votes? Because I don't trust any of the news media to give me the real, rather than "projected", numbers. Six states have yet to certify their elections; neither candidate has enough electoral votes to be the President-elect. (Anyone who pipes up with "Biden won, get over it" receives a failing grade in "reading comprehension".)
Anyway: I do remember some people scoffing at Obama's "office of the President-elect". "That was twelve years ago, B-ko!" I don't know why I bother.
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Won't the pilots then have to wear goggles to protect them from Rayleigh scattering? This is a point I don't really touch on in any of my SF stories where multi-megawatt lasers are being used in combat, but in atmosphere you really need to protect your vision against laser radiation.
I mean, there was that guy who built a 200-watt blue laser, and when he switched it on he was wearing goggles and a welder's mask to protect his sight from it. The camera image showed the thing emitting a shaft of light that a lightsaber would envy.
200 watts' worth of light is a lot of light. These guys are talking about fifty kilowatt lasers.
Fifty kilowatts is a good number for a laser weapon. I don't know how much power you expend to make 50 kW of light, but it for damn sure isn't going to run off of "D" cells, and no matter what frequency you use, the Rayleigh scattering will make it bad for anyone with unshielded eyes in the immediate vicinity.
(No, can't use a maser instead, because instead of blinding people you'd cook them.)
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Woke up around 4:30 AM and was wide awake, so I finally did as I've been meaning to and dug out the external hard drives.
Lots of anime there. Stuff I forgot I had, and so forth. One drive, the interface (I hope it's just the interface) died, so I can't see what's on it. I'll have to pull the drive out of the enclosure later and use the combo hard drive interface to check it out.
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It occurred to me that with the onset of autumn, and the impending winter, Harbor Freight might just have those motorcycle lifts in stock again. Hmm....
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Anyway, miserable November day outside. Bleah.