hyper-cavitating torpedoes

Umm, basically rocket torpedoes. When the torp is fired, it emits a tiny amount of gas, forming a bubble around the torp, letting it's internal rocket fire. The bubble stays with the torpedo as it moves, being replensished by onboard supplies. Since the torpedo needs to carry both gas for the bubble and fuel for the rocket, it's range is limited in comparison to standard torpedoes, but it is very, very fast. I think the Russians had one back in the 90s, but there are all sort of design challenges, especially maintaining the bubble when you try to steer the torp. Plus, it is not exactly a subtle weapon, since anyone that sticks their head into the water can hear it, never mind a ship with a half-decent sonar rig.

not enough sleep AGAIN. I was feeling not too bad at home and on the commute, but people started in with rapid fire questions as soon as I walked in to the office and with that came the foul mood. Grrr.

The questions have revealed that I messed up on something last month. It not HUGE, but it is not immediatly fixable either. double GRRR.

Don't give Dana the money. I don't know if she can be trusted.

Strega, I hope you didn't get conned for much. Kat, you too.

I hate the phrase "You can't con an honest person." Pfft. You're just messing with the definition of "con" in a way most con artists wouldn't bother to do. Hence a failing in the series Hustle, I think. They ran out of ways to maintain that distinction week in and week out, even at reduced British rates of show production.

Man, I seem to have lost the ability to sleep on all these meds. Let's just say serene does not this way lie.

I need my coworker to come in so I can bum a dollar off her to buy a Coke. The Cokes I was planning to bring from home are sitting in my kitchen.

I bet she has a cooler of cokes and a stash of cash.

I voted. Barak was at my voting station! Okay, not Barack Obama, but my neighbor Barak Richman, who was supporting a coworker of his who is running for Lt. Gov.

t cries

Luckily, my coworker came in and gave me a dollar. NO THANKS TO YOU PEOPLE.

Uh, huh. What story will you tell next time?

You'll all be sorry when I die of caffeine deprivation.

littoral

That's one of the US Navy's big fears. No one has a deepwater Navy that can touch ours. We have half of the world's aircraft carrier and ours are the biggest. We have the largest nuclear submarine fleet. The best anyone can hope for is local superiority in an area for however long until the US can send enough Carrier Battle Groups into an area. That being said, those are deep water ships. Get too close to the shore, the advantages start disappearing. Carriers are big targets, especially since they are basically just big tankers of aircraft jet fuel, with current estimates having one being able to take 3-4 missile hits before going up in a fireball. In the ocean, you can spot a missile platform (a ship, a sub, a plane) from a distance off and hopefully kill it before it launches. Especially since they will need a lot of platforms launching a lot of missile to get past missile defence. But when you get close to shore, finding the launch platforms becomes incredibly difficult. Do you blow up every pickup truck within two hundreds of the shoreline to make sure none of them are packing? Plus, in shallow waters near shore it becomes very easy to spot submaries, and you can't zap the sonar platforms (helicopters, ships) because close to shore, they can just run cables to get the data.

So the submarine warfare and the carrier group factions of the US Navy (that have been getting the lion's share of the budget since the 60s) have decided that someone else needs to take the risks, and are pushing for the surface ship faction to get some new toys. The surface ship guys, on the other hand, are just glad to actually have their own section of the budget again.

Close to shore is the equivalent of an urban environment for the Army. Perfect for the naval equivalent of guerrilla warfare.

One theory I've read about says that in the future, any surface ship anywhere can be located by satellite and immediately targeted by long-range missile. According to that view, the only warships will be submarines.

Actually, they are working on that. The US Navy and Darpa are working on a type of laser sensor that will be mounted on satellites, to detect the slight bump in the ocean that is caused when something displaces water underneath it, like a sub. Or a whale. Which is why they are still working on it, since it is embarrassing to depth charge whales...

The problem is that sending stuff into orbit still costs too much. Building a satellite that can spot a ship isn't that difficult in the scheme of things. Getting it into orbit is hideously difficult, especially if you are someone that most of the civilized world doesn't like, and you have to be willing to let someone else handle your satellite before launch, and the worry that they mess with it. That was one of the worries during the beginning of the 2nd Gulf War, that Iraq would find somebody to sell them satellite photos of US troop movements, and supposedly there was a lot of behind the scene threats to make sure the Russians, Chinese and French private companies (the most likely sellers) to honor the embargo...

Which is also why they are working on stealth ships, but at the moment the big problem is IR, ships show up as a hot spots on the ocean's surface, especially outside the tropics, and for the moment it appears there isn't much a solution for it...

I had a childhood cat who ADORED messing with dogs. There was a nighborhood lab he'd taunt into chasing him around a tree, and then turn the tables so the dog was running in circles trying to flee the murderous cat to the point of exhaustion. (Dog wasn't the brightest bulb.) The dog would finally give up and sit there whining while Sky sang his war cry and continued to scare the crap out of the poor canine.

We tried to break it up as much as possible out of pity for the dog, but between the dimness of that poor dog and the determination of that cat.... Well, they got the hose turned on them more than once.

I have no idea why the dog never once just went home and got away from the cat.