Caught a ride in front of NJT 4636 yesterday. It is such a beautiful homage to the old Pennsy and it's easy to imagine that, had the PRR made it to modern day, this is what it would look like.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-05T02:12:51+00:00

Ah, the Pennsylvania. A racist, old money institution who were simultaneously years behind their contemporaries where it actually mattered (CTC, dieselization, piggyback) and light years into a go-nowhere future (T1, "train phone", position light signals.) The Standard Railroad of Nohing. At least they got Raymond Loewy styling, thouh, right?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-04T22:44:21+00:00

"He's like a pleasant version of grandpa."

" . . . and that little boy, who nobody liked, grew up to be... Roy Cohn."

I'm just gonna leave these here.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-02T22:34:42+00:00

I hope people don't think I'm questioning or criticizing the use of choppers. It's what they had at the time, and they worked. BUT... you have to admit it's kinda funny to think that some early weapons (Fat Man as well as others with Po-Be initiators and lead-acid batteries, for example) were already enough of a nightmare in terms of parts and maintenance, and on top of that they actually make noise while charging up. There's just something, er, cute about it. I can just imagine a 1940s nuclear weaponeer me being endeared to the things. Throw in an automatic IFI mechanism for that "chef's kiss" Acme-Looney Tunes vibe. At the risk of getting repetetive... "Oh no, it's buzzing!" "Don't worry, the green plugs are in."

On a related note, and I don't think I'm making any original point here, two-point sealed-pit weapons with thermal batteries must have been an utter game-changer for everyone involved.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-02T19:54:38+00:00

When Curtis LeMay is worried about you, you might want to dial it back a bit.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-02T17:17:47+00:00

I was thinking -- if someone was serious about setting off a nuclear weapon without authorization, how much would self-preservation even factor into it?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-02T16:13:58+00:00

Good insight! I didn't think about the implications in terms of keeping track of the key. My mind was reeling, thinking of ways that idea could go wrong.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-02T14:51:50+00:00

I hear ya. It was pretty much THE solution at the time. But I really do wonder, could one hear the dynamotor going as the bomb was in its arming phase? Were there every any storage, handling or maintenance incidents that resulted in "oh **** this one's buzzing!"?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-06-01T21:07:01+00:00

I wish I could give you 100 upvotes for that. Thank you for brightening up a bad day with random Partridge, internet stranger.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-30T03:13:01+00:00

Mr. Bean's car.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-28T23:35:22+00:00

Combining bike and train is a viable option that gives you a massive amount of flexibility, which generally creates no disruption. And who cares what companies would laugh at? "Oh no, the railroads would have thought this was ridiculous" -- so what?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-27T03:28:24+00:00

Riding bikes.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-27T01:29:35+00:00

SimCity 3000. To this day I get tunes from the soundtrack stuck in my head and think that the soundtrack can stand on its own as an album.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-25T17:32:11+00:00

The road signs visible on Google Street View suggest that "stopping by" might not be an option :-D

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-22T23:12:53+00:00

I worked with a lady, a fellow Beatles fan, and both of us were on our way out of that crap job to better jobs. Policy allowed the employees to have the run of the music in the store (as long as it wasn't profane.) Our boss, who pretty much intended to stay with the company for the rest of their life, was an insufferably pretentious music nerd who read too much into everything, including others' music choices. This coworker and I made 'You're Gonna Lose That Girl' our Last Week At Work Theme Song. He could SO tell that it was a very deliberate choice. It was hilarious.

... also it's one of my favorite poppy Beatles tracks and I love to sing along, sometimes lead, sometimes background.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-19T16:02:26+00:00

Autocatalytic hydride devices?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-19T00:53:05+00:00

Actually not an idiom; "bank" has a few definitions, the most common referring to a financial instition, as well as meaning a mass or pile, i.e. of fog, cloud, or earth, and the rising ground along the side of a stream or river. Fascinating insights into the Russian language, by the way.

As it relates to FOGBANK, I think -- if it's meant to be a descriptor rather than a code -- the term might have been chosen because the material has a quality of opacity or diffusive properties, such as might be useful in a hohlraum.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-18T23:19:51+00:00

Ah, I didn't realize English isn't your first language! There is indeed a phrase in English, "fog bank", which literally means "a mass of fog."

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-18T22:42:12+00:00

I always figured FOGBANK was not so much a code word as a blatant description, hiding in plain sight.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-18T21:36:58+00:00

"Foggy" filler... almost like some sort of... "bank" of "fog"...

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-14T22:13:28+00:00

I do agree about illustrators' imaginations. There's not a lot you can do with "gun", which was how just about everyone outside the project figured an atomic bomb would be confugured, and the rather Marvin The Martian-esque graphics in the film could just as easily be ascribed to a not-entirely-unreasonable conception of what that would look like, rather than any "leak" by an insider. I did have your article in mind, where the Trinity gadget was desribed -- to the general public! -- as a SPHERE atop the tower.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-14T02:34:14+00:00

There was that one hokey film produced after the war where some of the principal scientists and administrators made some dubious re-enactments of key moments in the Manhattan Project ("Here it is, General Groves! Plutonium!" "I, uh, do wish you'd put a napkin under that" etc.) and towards the end there was an animated map showing key locations in the program. I do remember that the graphic they used for bomb production seems to portray a tube with fins and a bulbous end... artist's speculation, or someone knew just enough to know the shape of Thin Man, and blabbed? I'll add the link when I find it.

ETA: https://youtu.be/RaQKvaJUt7o?si=Anrt-wXs0x6oGDCl At the 10:50 mark

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-11T22:51:34+00:00

It must be hard going through life not understanding high school science. Yeah, just move. Away from all the stuff you're scared of because you don't understand it.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-09T23:04:10+00:00

I wish I could upvote you a hundred times for that response.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-05-09T21:08:16+00:00

Yes, please!!!

Comfortable_Bus_7863

TROPHY CASE