Wednesday shorts – Brandon act, A-anniversary, Kim spying, Fusion test

Seems I see lots of partial articles this week – ah well, that’s the way it goes.

First up – Air/Space Force folks can now self-submit and get a mental health evaluation within a day, under the provisions of the Brandon Act.

“Service members may request a referral for any reason, including, but not limited to, personal distress, personal concerns or trouble performing their duties,” the Air Force said in a Monday press release. “They are not required to provide a reason or basis for the referral.”

Once notified, superiors will “contact the mental health clinic and request an appointment for the member the same or next day,” the release said. That follow-up will be a face-to-face, telephone or telehealth appointment.  Military.com

The act was named for Brandon Caserta, who committed suicide in 2018. (Not to belittle his memory, but it’s a bit unfortunately named given Biden’s ‘Brandon’ nickname.)

H/t to Jeff LPH for indirectly reminding me that Sunday marked the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, and Tuesday marked the anniversary of Nagasaki’s. Sad that so many civilians had to die to stop that war.

According to Reuters, the Norks haven’t just been busy developing their own missiles.

An elite group of North Korean hackers secretly breached computer networks at a major Russian missile developer for at least five months last year, according to technical evidence reviewed by Reuters and analysis by security researchers.

Reuters found cyber-espionage teams linked to the North Korean government, which security researchers call ScarCruft and Lazarus, secretly installed stealthy digital backdoors into systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.  Reuters

NPO Mashinostroyeniya is the concern that developed the Mach 9 (claimed) hypersonic missile and has significant expertise in solid fueling. Not necessarily instantly achievable tech but certainly highly significant long-term goals.

Bet the next North Korea-Russia discussions will be interesting.

Remember when you were taught about the conservation of energy? You can’t get out more than you put in?  Seems contradictory, but Livermore Labs has for the second time created a hydrogen-helium fusion reaction which seemingly puts out more energy than goes in.

During December’s experiment, the lab used 192 ultra-powerful lasers to deliver 2.05 megajoules of energy to a tiny capsule smaller than a pea containing isotopes of hydrogen. It produced 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy output.  While the result was a net energy gain, 300 megajoules of energy was needed from the electrical grid to power the lasers. AFP

So using 300 megajoules to produce 2.05 megajoules from the lasers they produced 3.15 megajoules output, right? The math doesn’t seem to work for me, but that may be attributable to a dropped decimal point somewhere. Note too, it is a fusion reaction, so you have to add in the available energy from the hydrogen getting combined to make the helium, which is significant. The big question is containment – fusion reactions have been around for decades – that’s what a hydrogen bomb makes, which we can all agree is messy. However, if they can keep this at a scale where it is manageable, sustainable, and controllable – that’s significant. Seeing as how hydrogen is the most common element on the planet, we would hardly be likely to run out anytime soon.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force, Korea, Russia