S
LightNews LightNews
smalljaguar.bsky.social
S
@smalljaguar.bsky.social
150 followers 910 following 160 posts
Posts Replies Media Videos
smalljaguar.bsky.social
@andymasley.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202... might be interesting to you, especially this graphic:
September 30, 2025 at 1:54 PM
smalljaguar.bsky.social
@wantedcoolhandle.tngl.sh
September 21, 2025 at 3:57 PM
smalljaguar.bsky.social
www.anita.garden/projects/
www.anita.garden/assets/world...
very cool
September 9, 2025 at 11:49 PM
smalljaguar.bsky.social
rehabilitation of anti-soviet technical staff
* removal of problems by ambulance
AT FACTORY NO. 22, after Mitkevich's departure, acting directors came and went without leaving a mark. In the summer of 1936, Boris Nikolayevich Tarasevich took over as chief engineer. Since the factory was lacking a strong director, he took all the power himself. Tarasevich had been director of the Kolomensk Locomotive Building Factory until 1930. In 1930, he was arrested and convicted for his involvement in the "Industrial Party Affair." In the history of Russia throughout the pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and post- Soviet times, the Industrial Party was the only organization of the technical intelligentsia that professed truly technocratic principles. The leader of the Industrial Party, a scientist and thermal engineer with a worldwide reputation, Professor Leonid Ramzin, sincerely believed that the nation's power should be in the hands of scientists, engineers, and industrial leaders. They gathered together all those who were sentenced to long prison terms and proposed that they work under the leadership of their chief ideologue, Leonid Ramzin, in a special closed institute for thermal engineering focused on the creation of new types of steam boilers. Here Ramzin developed the design for a straight-through boiler, which was called the Ramzin boiler. The intellect of the Industrial Party members was used with a high degree of efficiency. In view of the fact that the convicts worked with complete devotion on behalf of the government of the proletarian dictatorship, they were freed and assigned to managerial work. That is how one of the members of the Industrial Party, a former "saboteur and servant of world imperialism," was entrusted with the technical leadership of Factory No. 22. He sometimes flaunted his allegedly anti-Soviet past. "I have already recovered from that case of influenza. That's why you can complain about me and accuse me as much as you want. Just remember that I will not tolerate idlers, illiterates, or demagogues." One of the military representatives particularly annoyed LIS when filling out the acceptance documents. His formal attitude and constant nitpicking even infuriated Tarasevich, who appealed to the chief of military acceptance. "Which one of us is the saboteur?" Tarasevich asked, "I, who was convicted in 1930, or your military engineer second class, whose whims keep our planes from leaving for Spain?" They proposed that the capricious military rep himself take a seat in the navigator's cockpit and satisfy himself that firing from the forward firing position machine gun in flight was completely trouble-free. The military rep really did fire in flight, having no qualms about wasting cartridges, and he reported to the pilot over the intercom that he was accepting the aircraft, and they could now go in for a landing. Then the pilot suddenly announced that the landing gear lowering device had failed. He would be forced to land the plane on its belly with the landing gear retracted. In this case, the rep could not stay in the forward cock- pit. During landing it was certain that "in the best case scenario your legs will be injured, and in the worst...." To make a long story short, the pilot made a decision and ordered the obstinate military rep to open the lower emergency hatch and, at his command, jump and parachute to safety. Up till then, no one had any experience parachuting from an SB. The unfortunate military rep was badly injured when he jumped out of the airplane and broke his leg upon landing. Relieved of his passenger, the pilot maneuvered over the airfield as though to help lower the landing gear. When he had made sure that the ambulance had reached the parachute of the military rep, he lowered the landing gear and safely landed. The military rep was laid up in the hospital for about three months. The handover of the airplanes proceeded without delay.
August 20, 2025 at 12:20 PM
smalljaguar.bsky.social
offhanded mention of a Stalin purge
bottom-up suggestions in exchange for bonuses
Explanation of the 3 necessary qualities in a good inventor
competition between OKBs (design bureaus)
I was introduced to Postyshev as part of a group of especially distin- guished youth. Twenty-five years later, we learned of Postysher's tragic fate in Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev's speech. He was liquidated as an enemy of the people in 1939 without any publicity. During a routine quality conference, Gorbunov stated that, compared with the standard set by TsAGI, our factory's aircraft were overweight by 800-900 kilograms. Such a loss of bomb payload could not be tolerated. Therefore, among other measures, he announced a weight-reduction competition. A prize of 100 rubles per kilogram was set, if a suggestion was accepted. Soon KOSTR and other factory services were flooded with a stream of suggestions. Over a period of six months, the airplanes managed to "slim down" by a little more than 800 kilograms. Now, whenever I wasn't working, I was busy with the problem of inventing a simple and reliable electric bomb release. It is difficult to explain how the light bulb comes on in an inventor's head. First and foremost, he must desire at all costs to think up something that does not yet exist or replace an existing thing with something much better. The second condition is competence. He must have an absolute understanding of the end product and knowledge of the subject of his invention. I would call the third condition the erudition that saves the inventor from inventing the "perpetual motion machine." All the while, the inventor needs to be able to critically assess his proposed alternative before going into foolish raptures about his own genius. Finally when everything is already clear to the inventor, when everything has been written and calculated, when the invention has even gone before a panel of experts and there are no doubts as to its innovation and advantages, that is when the most difficult stages begin: realization, experimental modification, and introduction. Therein lies the fundamental difference between the creative work of an inventor and engineer and that of a poet or artist. The TB-7 was constantly plaguing our thoughts. It was a thorn in our side. Besides Tupolev being Tupolev, he was also very close to Mikhail Kaganovich and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who at that time, together with Alksnis, primarily determined which aircraft would be put into series production. Nobody opposed the construction of one or two experimental aircraft. On the contrary, KBs were multiplying in the mid-1930s, and each had its own conception of air supremacy on which it based this or that type of aircraft. But the road to a series production factory, much less to acceptance as a standard armament, was much more compli- cated and more difficult than developing an aircraft in one or two years that fit the latest trends in the capricious world of aircraft design.
August 20, 2025 at 12:14 PM
smalljaguar.bsky.social
Neat stuff:
obligatory pyromaniac story
meeting Theremin
university admissions filtering by social class
claim "if we had started World War II rather than the Germans, and in 1937 rather than in 1939, it is possible that 600-700 TB-3s might have saved the world from Nazi aggression."
At the age of seven, some friends of the same age and I ran off to the highway to watch the few cars that drove by. We secretly hoped we would see them blow up the powder depots located across the highway next to the Khodynskaya radio station towers. I got into a lot of trouble for such absences, since the Khoroshevskiy arsenals instilled fear in everyone living in the vicinity. There was talk that enemy counterrevolutionaries would sooner or later blow them up and then our factory and every living thing in it would be obliterated. The interesting thing was that the arsenals really did blow up. It was the summer of 1920 and I had asked for permission once again to "go see how the radio station operates." Along the way, I saw smoke and flame of an extraordi- nary height dancing over the powder depots. People were running toward me shouting: "The depots are burning!" I was a pretty good runner and I took to my heels as fast as my eight-year-old legs could carry me toward the village of Shelepikha. Behind me it was already rumbling and thundering. The people running beside me were yelling that we needed to take cover behind the water tower— there was a very sturdy embankment there. When I reached the river- bank, I ran at full speed to the stone water tower building looming up ahead. Suddenly flames leapt up in front of me, and a hot wind full of sand and clumps of earth hit me in the face. In 1926, at the ham radio club at No. 3 Nikolskaya Street, Lev Sergeyevich Theremin demonstrated the first electronic musical instrument in the world, the thereminvox— the Voice of Theremin. This concert sparked enormous interest not only among radio aficionados, but also among professional musicians. The audi- ence was captivated by the elegant thirty-year-old engineer who literally pulled sounds from the air. The wooden box had two antennas: one in the form of a loop, the second a rod. Using light, fluid hand movements Theremin changed the pitch and volume of the sound. The music emanating from out of nowhere was remi- niscent first of a violin, then a flute, then a cello. A universal, burgeoning passion for technology and precise science had already begun in those years. Seven to ten individuals competed for each opening in the technical institutes of higher learning. Entrance exams were not the only barrier to admission. In addition to the usual admissions board, a sort of screening board was at work. Such boards were supposed to ensure that the vast majority of those admitted were workers who had served at least three years in an industrial intern- ship, members of a trade union, or children of pure proletarian lineage. Next prior- ity was given to peasants, and white-collar workers and their children were admitted to the remaining positions. and had virtually no hope of being accepted the first time around. Nevertheless, I applied to enter the MVTU school of electrical engineering. Out of naiveté, assuming that my radio engineering works might play some role, I wrote about them in detail in my autobiographical essay, citing the three inventor's certificates I had already received and my journal publication. I passed the exams, but natu- rally did not fit into the social lineage chart. A member of the acceptance board, who was specially designated to interview applicants, explained this to me quite frankly: "Work about three years and come back. We'll accept you as a worker, but not as the son of a white-collar worker." At a lecture for the factory's managerial staff in 1932, I heard an instructor from the Air Force Academy assert that hundreds of TB-3 bombers flying in a solid formation would protect one another against fighters. Dropping thousands of high-explosive and incendiary bombs, they would ensure strategic success. General victory would be guaranteed. During the production process, in addition to replacing the engines, the TB-3 aircraft underwent other updates that entailed changes to its weapons, bomb payload, and chassis design. TB-3 airplanes set several world records for altitude while carry- ing large loads. The arctic version of the aircraft became world-renowned after the landing of Ivan Dmitriyevich Papanin's expedition on the North Pole in 1937. Factory No. 22 produced more than 800 TB-3 bombers between 1932 and 1937. In 1939, the aircraft gained fame in combat at Khalkhin-Gol? This was the last successful use of the TB-3. At the beginning of World War II, German fighter planes annihilated the TB-3 bombers with impunity. TB-3s flying in formation at low altitude, each equipped with five small-caliber machine guns, proved powerless when under attack by maneuverable Messerschmitt-109 fighters armed with rapid- firing guns. Douhet's doctrine also failed to vindicate itself when a large number of American Flying Fortresses appeared on the scene. They delivered sensitive strikes against German cities in the rear, but could not break the German war machine. The infantry forces and tactical air force of the USSR accomplished this goal. By the way, if we had started World War II rather than the Germans, and in 1937 rather than in 1939, it is possible that 600-700 TB-3s might have saved the world from Nazi aggression. But in 1937 Stalin was too carried away with the struggle against "enemies of the people." This saved Hitler.
August 20, 2025 at 11:52 AM
smalljaguar.bsky.social
you can save quite a lot of space by stripping unnecessary metadata (I used `ffmpeg -i img.avif -map_metadata -1 -c copy out.avif`) and saved 400 b64 characters
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
August 18, 2025 at 10:11 PM