For fucking real. Cooks and servers have the driest hands in the world because they wash them like 70 times a day.

Ill tempered sea bass?

Exactly, a lot of things should be happening in kitchens and food prep areas all over the country that aren’t.

Manager: “Did you get their order right this time?”

The opposition has a version of this program, but to avoid confusion they eschew the term “dolphin” and call it Mahdi-Mahdi

You almost had me until you added the part about the “spear shooting contraption”...

In 2013, Egyptian police were reported to have temporarily detained a duck...

the name is Pond.... James Pond....

So long, and thanks for all the intel.

Whoa. A legit, nonfiction article that is also Onion-worthy. I'm flipping out over here.

Re-entry vehicles are designed to withstand the stress and heat of re-entry, but those are contained within an aerodynamic shroud during launch, and are not what this system is designed to attack.

ICBMs especially water launched ones are not fragile and are designed to withstand stress and heat.

I believe that ballistic missiles accelerate much faster than the shuttle because they are much lighter and don’t have to worry about killing their meat-based cargo.

I feel like this was covered before, but... the ABL was not originally conceived for ICBM defense. Rather it was for IRBM or “theater” defense against missiles like the SCUD, or even cruise missiles. And in that role, where we had already established air superiority, it would make sense to have a giant 747 with a…

Unless you're orbiting above it. Tyler may have buried the lede with putting the space components near the middle/end.

That’s exactly how YAL-1 worked. I saw several videos of it when I was working BMD.

Beyond the laser we need better thermal management and battery technology before it will fly. (On anything beyond a C130) Even the best lasers are only 30% efficient, so at a megawatt that is a ton of heat. And the turbine engine isn’t going to be able to handle sudden pulse loading of the laser without some energy…

If they get their factor-of-ten reduction in mass efficiency and aim for 500kW, That’ll be 1500kg of laser apparatus, requiring about 700hp of electrical power to run it. Then you need:

Excuse me, that is clearly a lightly textured dumb box with TURRETS. The turrets are what make it sexy.

Look what I found on Google Earth at Davis-Monthan AFB.