Comments on: Is the Gulf of Mexico to become Лебединое Озеро?

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:07:02 +0000

They haven’t dismantled the line or destroyed the forms, so they could, in theory, start up again, but it would be damn expensive. Tupolov would want confirmed orders before it did anything.

Izvestia, even after the Kremlin denied anything was going on, reported that their have been visits to Cuba by officials from Long Range Aviation looking at possible landing fields. Izvestia is owned by Gazprom, so it has inside access, but it may just be launching trial balloons and plausible deniability for Putin.

It doesn’t make sense for anything other than pull the tail of the US, and the Shrubbery is gone is less than six-months, so nothing will happen unless the US over-reacts.

Cuba is playing its traditional role as a pawn, but it is probably making money for going along with this charade by not saying anything.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:34:01 +0000

It’s not *what* Putin is doing with Cuba that interests me so much as the timing, and the *why*. 🙂 He’s no fool. I also don’t think that it primarily has anything to do with supporting Cuba.

OT:
The real fun will start getting XP & Vista to read/write EXT2/3 & ReiserFS partitions!

I used to use EXT2IFS but haven’t tried it on Vista, and I have a ReiserFS driver, again, dunno about Vista! *sigh* I’ll find out I guess. 😉

I use Cygwin a lot on XP! 😉 And some good remote access tools from NetSarang, especially their X-server. 🙂 But they don’t help much on a multiboot PC (and unfortunately, I can’t use VMware or other virtualizer for what I need to do. They are not 100% yet).

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:03:56 +0000

Bryan, the Tu-160 line is “open” only by some definition of “open” that goes “using up a bunch of spare airframe parts”. There were some Tu-160’s on the line when the Soviet Union collapsed and Putin ordered some of them to be completed, but once the airframe parts in the factory are exhausted that’s pretty much it.

As for Windows, I am just so happy I do not have to deal with Windows on a regular basis… that’s one advantage of being a Linux penguin. If the installer fails, I can see what happened and fix it, either myself or I have people for that (bwahahaha!). No mysterious shit going on. And if there was, I’d just go into the source and put enough fprintf’s or kprintf’s until it wasn’t mysterious anymore. Use the Source, Luke :-).

– Badtux the Linux Penguin

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:09:49 +0000

There should health warning labels on the install disks. It drives one to drink and worse with its random pattern of failure.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:56:23 +0000

Stick a HazMat sign on the front! LOL

Hmmm! I might do that too. 😉

Of course… that would assume idiot users know what HazMat means. 😐 *sigh*

I am not sure installing Windoze is any easier than the old Novell stuff! Wouldn’t be the first time an install failed for no apparent reason! Or it installs, then within a few days, begins to misbehave! Then, of course… we have the wonderful *update* *reboot* {repeat many times} cycle!

I hate Windoze! I think I may have mentioned that before. 😉

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:30:12 +0000

Yes, I knew what you meant. 😈

Software installation, what fun! Have just finished all of those clean installs on the Apache/PHP/MySQL I’m into programming mode, not software install mode.

It’s better today than the old Novell disk comp routine that took a day to complete. You either had to stay and watch it, or put up a dozen signs tell people not to touch the machine.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:36:25 +0000

Yup! LOL

You know Putin only did it to annoy the GOP Bushloving nutters! 😉 I’d go read a few of their insane blogs for a laugh… but I’m too busy and don’t care. 🙂

Anyone sane would do the usual diplo stuff, but with the bunch of clueless bed-wetters in charge there now… who knows.

Well, I got the 2 PC’s built. Now the fun of installing all the software begins! *sigh* The main dev system will mutiboot XP Pro x32/Vista Ultimate x64/Linux {I haven’t decided which yet} x64. The other will have 3 secure gateway/router configured BSD/linux distro’s for me to test and decide which I will go with.

Back to it… 😉 Have fun! (I probably won’t, until it’s all finished!)

Oops! Yeah… East is West there, and vice-versa! LOL Well… ya know what I meant! 😉

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:54:21 +0000

All we need now is for Vlad to sell a couple [the line is still open] to Venezuela or Iran. That would would throw some fuel on the fire.

It is no more useful than the B-1B, which is to say, not at all.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:46:34 +0000

The funny thing is that now that Russia is part of the “free world”, they actually do have better engines. Russian industry still can’t produce all the components needed for a world-class jet engine, but that’s okay, they can use their GAZPROM money to buy components on the open market now that they have pretty much full access to all world markets. The Tu-160 hasn’t been upgraded to the latest and greatest, of course, and I doubt that it ever will be — as I noted earlier, the entire rationale for its existence is now as defunct as the Soviet Union. Really, I don’t know why the Russians even bother to keep it flying, other than maybe as a prestige thing.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:50:27 +0000

Actually I think most of the working ‘Swans” were the ones the Ukrainians returned. They were actually maintained in the South, not so much everywhere else. With better engines they would be nice birds.

I don’t see them attempting the Cuban flights with anything other than fuel on board.

They would have to ship the support gear and personnel ahead, and locate fuel, so nothing will happen quickly. It’s a good way of annoying people, and if US-Cuban relations don’t show some flexibility, there’s no reason for Raoul not to do it. The Russians could use Cuba as a military aviation dealership, rotating through whatever they want to sell to South America.