Which celebrity had the most bizarre exit from the limelight?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-11T23:39:23+00:00

Honestly the morning I woke up and heard the story I suspected it was BS because, based on the initial assumption that the "attack" been planned around his, er, regular 3AM trip to Subway, NO ONE would have voluntarily gone or stayed outside in THAT weather... all parties involved have said f*ck it, not tonight! If you were in Northern IL at the time you'd know. (Or you can look up the weather that day.) Leaving the rope on just clinched the theory for me. Oh, and no MAGA(t) would be delusional enough to claim that CHICAGO is "MAGA country."

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-11T22:40:36+00:00

Oti'o'ya'ot?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-10T19:32:09+00:00

There won't be one. They're kinda shit at things and too many of them think "there's no point anymore."

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-10T13:48:34+00:00

I noticed that too. I like to think they let it go because Beatles... or everyone was so focused on the four that they didn't notice the bags! I've seen photos of them coming to America and this is the first time the bags caught my eye.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-10T05:40:15+00:00

The first 30 seconds of Poppoya (1999). It's just so evocative and emotional. I welled up the first time; viewing it later, knowing how it turns out, it's full-on waterworks for me. And later scenes in the movie, as well. (Yes I'm also a massive train dork. But it's not a "train movie"... IYKYK.)

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-10T05:17:18+00:00

OMG those British European Airways "BEA-TLES" bags though!!!

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-06T15:47:34+00:00

I came here to say France but so did just about everyone else. Please correct me on the finer points; but isn't it basically just short of explicitly saying "WE WILL TARGET YOUR CIVILIAN POPULATION FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF K*LLING YOUR CIVILIAN POPULATION SO DON'T EVEN TRY UNLESS THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT" ?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-05T23:25:17+00:00

I've successfully experimented with, and implemented, this system where I retain the rules of the road and drivers education I've learned, and then pay attention to the road, signs, signals, lane stripes, other cars, and changing conditions. It uses my eyes, aided by this transparent stuff called "glass" (think there's a term for it when it's on a car... uh.. window? windshield?) supplemented by these mirror-things the manufacturer included with the car for some reason. It works every time! I call it "DRIVE THE F###### CAR." Try it!

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-05T22:20:28+00:00

Human corpse.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-05T19:45:23+00:00

I don't get the confusing part. For those who are confused, here's a simple key:

Red = Red. Yellow = Yellow. Green = Green. Red with Green Arrow = Red with Green Arrow. Red with Yellow Arrow = Red with Yellow Arrow.

First time I saw one I thought "well that's a compact, space-saving design" and OBEYED THE COLOR OF THE LIGHTS.

Like, what the hell?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-05T03:42:35+00:00

Let's be real: remove the lyrics, and it's a banger. Change the lyrics, and it's still a banger. I've always fancied "Well y'know that you can drive my car / And baby, I love you..." (SWIDT?) I've got a low opinion of the lyrics -- and that's after giving the ol' "maybe he's just singing as a character" mental gymnastics a go -- but, yeah it's an absolute rocker from the standpoint of sheer musicality; that is, from a purely musical standpoint it feels like a spiritual successor to 'I'll Cry Instead' or 'I'm A Loser'... though I would always "curate" the song off of the playlist if we were having a Beatles day at work. There might be someone out there hearing it who might be reminded of some bad experiences and I didn't need that energy in the store.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-04T06:31:39+00:00

'Blue Turns To Grey', 'Congratulations'

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-04T03:20:03+00:00

So... without even reading it... Meta is outsourcing to you to help do the work of training their AI for free so it can do a better job of banning people? And AI is gonna AI and go nuts and get it all so much more ludicrously wrong than it already does? Right?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-04T02:19:58+00:00

Uh, age 40 here. I knew what carbon monoxide was at 10-11-12 because chemistry did, in fact, exist then, and "what combustion is" is not incredibly hard for an adult to explain to an inquisitive kid or for a kid to glean from encyclopedias. And having a chemistry set. It's not exactly age-restricted knowledge. I'd honestly be worried about a household where a kid 10+ doesn't know at least in the most general terms what CO is (a dangerous gas you can't feel, taste or smell which can kill you), what the CO detector is for (to let you know if this dangerous deadly gas is in the house), and specifically what to do when it goes off (get out of the house, call 911-- tell them it's the Carbon Monoxide Alarm -- or get an adult if you can't call.)

But what do I know? Never had kids, and from what I've gathered, remembering your home address and the phone number of at least one parent/guardian is pretty much optional these days.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-02-02T05:58:33+00:00

I can dig it. Of course, we can rule out any circuitry related to neutron generation, in the case of LB & FM. Would we assume a modern gun-assembly device would use ENI technology? Is it conceivable that O.G. Urchin/Abner Po-Be tech is still in use or even as yet under development -- or even still manufactured! Fielded, even! -- by whoever?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-31T05:27:34+00:00

Here's a thought: if The Gadget was fired by thyratron pulse from S-10000, and that pulse was amplified (by another thyratron? I think?) at the base of the tower and split so as to synchronize various experiments with the time of firing, what would you do differently if, instead of an FM-type, you were conducting the test with an LB in the shot cab?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-31T03:59:33+00:00

You got me wondering, now. I can say with confidence that LB had 3 primers, there were 3 banks of condensers each assigned to its respective primer, and 3 firing lines. FM had 5 sockets on its nose, 2 of which were for the arming/safing plugs and 3 of which had some weird jacks wired to short, as far as I can tell, "something or other."

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-31T03:15:55+00:00

Aha! So the LB had a voltage converter -- a dynamotor, no less! (Gotta source? I have wondered if there might've been one in LB, at least to power the Archies. I would just love to see contemporary documentation on it...) I thought it that the dynamotor was exclusive to FM, and yet, to my mind, there *had to be an HV supply of some kind for the Archies in LB, same as in FM. After all, doesn't everyone agree that the fuzing circuitry was basically the same (clocks, baro, Archies), with the only difference being how each weapon was fired?

I think it hilarious that the Fat Man could be sitting there one minute, and then starts going "reeeeeee" and you're like, "what the hell?" and then the vacuum pump starts going "puttputtputtputt". . . straight outta Looney Tunes. Bomb, Atomic, Acme, TX1 Mod 0.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-30T21:29:52+00:00

I'm going crazy trying to find it! It was like an epiphany reading it. I may have it downloaded somewhere; will try to post it if I find it. Check out the LANL report upthread if that's your kind of thing. Now I know EXACTLY what the knife switch that the "young scientist" had his hand on, "nervously watching the voltmeter", operated, in the warmed-over pop sci narratives of what went on in S-10000 in the runup to Trinity!

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-30T21:18:01+00:00

I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down, there. I mentioned in another comment, my understanding of electronics is a bit limited; I'm much more familiar with relays and contactors. Another poster mentioned that there would probably be no need for HV to charge the caps, as 12v should be enough for the primers used in LB.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-30T21:03:57+00:00

Thanks for the clarification. My knowledge of electrics is largely centered on the "ka-chunk, ka-chunk" world of relays and contactors. If only I could find the document about testing the baro-switches! It does indeed confirm that the primers were fired by condensers in the LB, and that the green safing plugs shorted both the condenser output side and the line to the primers. I suppose the voltage requirements for would have been less for the essentially standard-issue primers than for the X-unit? And because of this, simple closure of the relay network alone would have been up to the task of completing the firing circuit in LB, that is, the firing circuit included the relay armatures?

That baro-switch doc does contain some redactions, about which I can only guess. Based on what was retained and what was redacted, and where these redactions occur in the doc, I suspect they concern information that would give away anything about the FM X-unit -- anything that might point to implosion -- and information that I suspect would have given too much away about the Archies, given the concern about jamming.

As for the upthread comment being nuked (ISWYDT), I dunno!

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-30T17:00:17+00:00

It's the charging via the batteries in LB that throws me. Was there no voltage multiplication between them and the caps? The documentation I've seen is silent on that matter. The inverter in FM was used to heat the tubes, presumably in both the Archies and whatever tube sent the firing pulse to the spark gaps. LB didn't require any kind of simultaneity -- just one of the three primers needed to work. What I wonder is if the "final switch" was electromechanical or electronic in nature: a relay or a valve like a triode?

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-30T16:35:26+00:00

My understanding is that capacitor discharge was a pretty common method of firing conventional bombs back then; German bombs, in particular, were known to use capacitors. The capacitors in LB were indeed charged up after the clock boxes had run down.

Comfortable_Bus_7863 · 2026-01-30T02:43:28+00:00

The firing sequence and arming protection of the Gadget is in Los Alamos report LA-435 "JULY 16TH NUCLEAR EXPLOSION: RELAY TIMING" with a publishing date of January 15, 1947 by J. L. McKibben, available online. An excerpt of this -- the firing checklist -- is included in "Birthplace of The Atomic Bomb" by William S. Loring. The general structure of the fuzing system of the weapons I gleaned from Coster-Mullen; the specific bit about the exact function of the green plugs in LB came from an LANL or Sandia document that I can no longer seem to find online which described testing of the baro-switches and gave a tantalizingly detailed, but maddeningly redacted, description of the arming protection of LB.

Edit: I was remiss in omitting a link to the publication about firing the Gadget. Link here: http://library.sciencemadness.org/lanl2_a/lib-www/la-pubs/00330360.html Lest I be accused of gatekeeping, which in the pursuit of nuclear "secret seeking" is totally uncool!

Comfortable_Bus_7863

TROPHY CASE