Unfortunately, there seems to be no upper limit on the number of UAVs desirable to have in inventory. There is a lot of talk of offensive and defensive drones that can be made for US$50.00. Ok, you can 3D print something for the cost of materials – a plastic shell, for want of a better word. But developing it beyond that requires a lot more than a 3D printer.
From the Workshop
A discussion of writing – you may be a little tired of me writing about writing. After pear-clutching and trying to decide what to do with projects, I decided to flesh out the story Half Life (see the second short story in the Conduct Unbecoming collection of short stories), a science fiction story you may (or may not) recall that deals with The Coil. There is a reason for doing this. I wanted to do a one-off story and more science fiction because there is a readership for that that I want to satisfy in part. As with everything, there is the concept of starting another series, and I didn’t want to do that.
One-off sci-fi story where I’ve already developed part of it (you who have read the short have a chapter under your belt). When I wrote the short, I had a developed plot for a book in mind. In other words, everything that happened in Half Life the short, was part of a greater whole.
The concept cover (right) will almost certainly not be the final cover, but when I’m working on things, I tinker with the art while thinking about character development and plot formation. In the story, a boy on Earth shares a consciousness with a girl on a planet 73 light-years distant. The teenage boy is shipping out to destroy her home. The outline for the story was done when I did the short, so there are already about 55,000 words invested in it. Expect to see it live in digital and paperback, possibly by the end of June 2026.
I’m an author in search of a market that will justify the effort that goes into writing, and I don’t think that I’ve connected yet. I may never connect in the Amazon-dominated world, but writing keeps me out of trouble. So there is that.
Bullet Points:
** I had a discussion the other day about Mexican food. The only place where I have eaten a huarache is in Mexico. For some reason, they never crossed the border as part of the cuisine. The word “huarache” means “sandal” (shoe) because of its shape. There are many different ways to make a huarache, and they’re all pretty good. Southern Arizona has outstanding Mexican food. Northern Arizona, not so much. I haven’t found anyplace that earns a “B” or higher, and it’s frustrating. There are quite a few places that can get a C or even a B-.
** Planetary balance in a universe of extremes.
** Carrola on the agenda.
** Holy Week is over, but the Spanish approach might still face pushback in the USA.
** (h/t Claudio) The nervous nellies who want to ban Combined Effects Munition (cluster bombs/mines) tried to get the US to take them out of inventory, but failed, thankfully. Area-denial weapons offer significant benefits in almost all combat scenarios. They’re not that difficult to sweep when the conflict ends. The US is not a party to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. While pausing use in 2003, the U.S. resumed transferring these weapons to Ukraine in 2023 and is using them in Iran. During Operation Desert Storm, the US Air Force dropped 10,035 CBU-87s. During Operation Allied Force, the US dropped about 1,100 cluster bombs, mostly CBU-87s. The basic CBU-87 is designed to be dropped from an aircraft at any altitude and any airspeed. When the CBU-87 is used in conjunction with the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser guidance tail kit, it becomes much more accurate and is designated CBU-103; and when the CBU-87 is used in conjunction with the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser-Extended Range guidance tail kit, it is designated CBU-113/B.
Book Review – No Man’s Land, by Richard K. Morgan
I think that I’ve read all of Morgan’s books. Some are better than others, or perhaps some appeal to me more as a reader than others. Are you too old or jaded to read a fairy tale? If not, perhaps you’d enjoy this book too.
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The Great War was supposed to be the war to end all wars—and maybe it would have been, had an even greater, otherworldly foe not risen to extinguish the conflict. Overnight, as guns blazed in France and Flanders, village after village in the quiet British countryside was swallowed by the Forest. And within the Forest lurk the Huldu—an ancient fae race, monstrous in their inhumanity, who have decided that mankind’s ascendency over the world can endure no longer.
Enter Duncan Silver. Scarred by the war, fueled by a rage deeper than the trenches in which he once fought, Duncan is determined to show the Huldu that the world is not theirs for the taking. Armed with a deadly iron knife and a cut-down trench gun filled with iron shot, Duncan will stop at nothing to return the children the Huldu have stolen to the arms of their families. No matter how many Huldu he may have to slaughter along the way.
But when he is hired by a mother to return her four-year-old daughter, Miriam—taken by the Huldu six months past and replaced with a changeling—all hell breaks loose. Miriam is a pawn in a much bigger game for dominance than Duncan ever expected, and several long-buried secrets from his past are about to be violently resurrected.
Identify the Combined Effects Munition
1
2
Identify the Aircraft
3
20,000+ built
4
Parting Shot
Knife people – you know who you are…
End
ID the Combined Effects Munitions
1 – CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapon
2 – CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapon
ID the Aircraft
3 – Finnish Air Force Polikarpov U-2
4 – RAF Vickers Vincent Mk.I
2 is M134 bomblet – Need to learn to proofread:)
Yes, #2 is also called the Honest John
I thought it was an M39 warhead filled with M74 anti personnel bomblets. The general shape is the same.
I thought the Honest John was a surface-to-surface missile? Did they repurpose the warhead?
Air-burst release
Knives-
Only 73, beginner! Have bought knives in about 15 countries.
Mostly now if I see something I like I make my own. LL has seen some of my work.
Sadly today at a bar-b-que fund raiser we had a 15 year old boy helping and when I asked no one has ever showed him how to sharpen or use a knife properly. Gave him a quick lesson with one of my sharpening stones.
I’ve always believed that, absent Boy Scouting (which departed from much of the woodcraft), young boys and girls should be taught how to shoot and render firearms safe, and how to sharpen and care for knives. How to butcher a chicken or a larger animal (sheep/goat/pig), and so forth, as part of their basic primary education. Land navigation, use of paper maps and a compass, and celestial navigation at night. How NOT to get lost. How to find potable water or to make water potable. We could call it basic training. I also realize that I’m much of a dinosaur in today’s world. Ah, well, the time will come when they will all need it and will reinvent the wheel. That is inevitable.
2) ATACMS Block 1 – M39 with M74 submunition bomblets
Excellent.
Honest John makes more sense, the image was fairly old.
Latest scam – phone text message, purporting to be from the state’s capital city, about a summons to traffic court. The phone number to call is Canadian. Sounds legit…
Noem got sidelined, and then we learned about her husband’s odd behavior.
Now Bondi got laid off…so what has her husband been doing?
Suggestion seen elsewhere – tell the Western European countries that the US is going to mine Hormuz, and for them to stop all traffic going through it.
Then get popcorn and watch the reactions.
I’ve received those phone texts myself. I just delete them. ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’ – PT Barnham.
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I was under the impression that Bondi had a boyfriend, not a husband, but I don’t know much about him. As to Noem, there were a few people laying pipe, not just Corey Lewendowski. Apparently, her husband found a different way to amuse himself.
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Pres. Trump is playing with Iran. I understand why. You don’t want to destroy everything. Unfortunately, the twelvers want that, and who can deny them?
Barnham would not have believed so many could have become massively gullible. Oh, and don’t forget to stock up half your garage with TP in case another manipulated cold virus gets unleashed on the unsuspecting, best to beat the crowds (figuratively, that is.)
I’m good.
Can’t be too sure, never know when there will be a run on Charmin, a simple luxury because life is too short and unpredictable for 1-ply.
The huarache looks delicious. I have a Mexican friend who’s a decent cook. Maybe the next time I see her I’ll make a request.
Good move, Jim.
We once had a Mexican native neighbor from Chiapas state who had a restaurant. He could become very animated about regional cuisine and regarded most Mexican menus in our local restaurants as, “Chihuahua xxxx”. We did have some great meals at his resturant.
At my age, food is mainly fuel. My most memorable meals were in Ely, NV at a family style Basque resturant.
It’s a long way from here to Ely.
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They eat iguanas in Chiapas. He may not have had easy access to them in NV. He’s right, though. A lot of the cuisine served in Northern AZ is “Not horrible”.
Weirdly, there’s a place in Providence that offers huaraches.
– Kle.
Identify the Combined Effects Munition:
1. CBU-97
2. Honest John M134 bomblets filled with Sarin chemical weapon.
Identify the Aircraft:
3. Polikarpov Po-2, an ambulance or limousine variant
4. Vickers Vincent
Excellent, Surly.
I kinda thought Half Life to be somewhat reminiscent (and favorably so) of Richard McKenna’s SF stories.
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Carrola’s agenda. The agenda these, as he so quaintly yet accurately puts it, “a*sholes” have in store for the rest of us is celebration, subjugation and then assimilation as their “final solution.” Nothing less will do for them, and like The Terminator, they will not stop.
Exactly, for one of Carrola’s object groups anyway…the other – all of less than 1% of our population – have refused to recognize the first group would toss them off a building for their ‘odd’ proclivities that they demand the rest of us embrace with open arms so they can feel normalized.
As I’ve mentioned more than once, writing science fiction and making it unique, given the volume of literature out there, is a challenge. Writers also pick up pieces of other people’s work subconsciously if they read enough. Elements of this or that creep into writing, and I don’t know how you (as a writer) can manage to quash that. Then there’s life-imitates-art that comes into play. I recall the Star Trek communicators – then Motorola came out with the flip phone. I know I’m dating myself, but it’s like watching the SpaceX first stage landing and being plucked into the gantry with chopsticks. Who could have imagined that thirty years ago?
Roddenberry was a prophet.
Former LAPD, a complicated guy, and visionary. I think that it was Lucille Ball who gave him his jumpstart.
Did not know that.
I see his credits on older TV shows (I watch credits) and am surprised.
24 episodes of Have Gun Will Travel.
Similarly Robert Altman was the director of the first Combat! episodes and Sam Peckinpah on The Rifleman,
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“After pear-clutching and trying to decide …”
I can’t get that image out of my mind. Looks awkward. :)
Yes, Lucille Ball. IIRC, When Rodenberry first proposed Star Trek to (I think) CBS, they turned him down, telling him they already had an SF series in the works, “Lost in Space”. Heh, “Danger Will Robinson, danger!”. Just prior, he also created the series “The Lieutenant”. Here’s a clip–
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fxJdxL3NJs
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How’s that for dating myself?
Yes. Lucille was running Desilu Productions, and green lit “Star Trek”.
I hope you didn’t misunderstand my comment to mean I thought you tried to copy McKenna’s style or work. I don’t think that at all, not the way you’d operate.
No, not at all. I’m a fan or Richard McKenna. I wish he’d written more beyond Sand Pebbles.
Heh…got this push notification this morning:
Hungry Ghosts
Book 2 of 2: Broken Toys
by Larry B Lambert
Second in the Broken Toys series, following Frank Brandt advising the president against Hungry Ghosts and Claire Hoffman investigating UAP, both transformed by alien technology
That means buy the book…..
It does…I think they call that ‘push-marketing to current followers’…like a GoFundMe but with a smaller target audience.
got it yesterday, finished it yesterday – first reading.
you will not be unhappy — though it leaves many questions/situations unanswered and poses quite a few new ones; looks like it could be a very long series.
So far, with current busyness, I have a stack on the Kindle ‘night table’ that I’m working through, half of which are Larry’s.
Boron, what sort of marketer/writer would I be if I didn’t leave you wanting more? The outline for the Broken Toys follow-up will be very complicated. Are the benevolent aliens as cool as you thought they were, or do they have their own agendas? How does the music work when you pick up a Rhapsody and why do the weapons discriminate and on what basis – isn’t discrimination wrong? And the babies… And the President? Does she hear the music?
BTW: does Baen publish SciFi (at a reasonable remuneration for the author) or is it Amazon/China under another name?
I need to go to writer’s workshops the way that Old NFO does and possibly meet potential publishers in person. The default question is “What will you do to market my work?” Dealing with would-be publishers in the age of Amazon, where THEY control the market, is a different game. I had a prominent literary agent in NYC, whom I met in person when I was there on business pre-Amazon. They didn’t do anything with my work.
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Old NFO’s friend Ian McMurtrie owns Raconteur Press. I have no grief with Ian. But maybe a year ago, he was jonesing for sci-fi stories for an anthology he was assembling on a podcast he does with Old NFO. I submitted a story because he was pushing for them. (crickets) I asked Old NFO, a friend of mine, to ask Ian what happened. He did. No rejection letter, no f-off and die letter, no nothing. The story was VAMPIRE MOON, which is the first story in my “SHORTS – collection.” https://www.amazon.com/Shorts-Selection-Short-Stories/dp/B0GMP2V5SZ/ref=sr_1_2
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The story may have sucked – eye of the reader and all that – but to just blow me off is typical of the treatment that I’ve received from traditional publishing groups.
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Baen (I went to their website) wants the traditional query letter, they mull it over, and if they like you, 25 pages, they mull it over, and if they like you, send the manuscript. They mull it over, and if they like you a year later, they publish your work on Amazon and take a cut.
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This is my only point. If I work 4-6 months to turn out a good story, why should I kiss up to them to have them do precisely what I would do and give them a 40% or 50% cut of my efforts, a year later? Or maybe they sit on it for two years before they send me a rejection letter – if they even bother. If I sound like a cynic, I am.
Boron, If I want to be treated like an unwanted stepchild I can always write a demand letter to the IRS requesting an audit.
My Dad told me continually, “When kicked by a mule, consider the source of the insult.”
If you don’t sleep well at night now, how does “Lambert Publishing” sound?
Hire a few readers/editors/(I’d suggest AI editors, but, for the most part, they’re too immmature [at present] and tend to be humorless), and start rakin’ it in.
LL .. I enjoy the on going writing discussions. Everyone needs a whatever to keep busy in for fun. Plus I learn a lot from your talking about writing.
*
But to that topic, a question. How long does it take you to write 5,000 unedited words for a novel? Not looking for exact, just getting perspective on when you comment 50,00 words for a new book like “Half Life” what that means time wise. I think most people have no idea on what amount of time commitment that requires.
*
UAV’s are a complicated topic. But ultimately how much boom is needed to kill the target? Then how to get it to the target accurately and effectively? Those answers will decide what’s required from a fifty dollar one that can go in a house window to get a sniper versus a multi million dollar one large enough to sink an aircraft carrier. People want to harp on the fifty dollar one as if that’s all that’s needed. But that makes as much sense as saying every soldier only needs a sharpened wooden stick versus a machine gun.
*
Cluster munitions are just another weapon in the tool box. One can choose to use ethics and morals in their application and target selection but it’s just a weapon.
Is it really cost effective to 3d print a mass production rather than to cnc a mold and injection-mold?
No
Economy of scale…injection molding (plastic and metal) is vastly more cost effective as you suggest Ed. Gotta admit tho, these new 3D ‘printers’ and various materials are pretty amazing…need to replicate a broken ‘thingy’ (engineer technical term), say, in Raging Pink to match your daughters [now broken] Barbie Corvette. Done in a few hours. And the CAD programs are simple enough most can learn. Someday I might get back into tinkering and get one of these printers, Jon at FarmCraft101 (great channel), just did a 4′ long draft tube for his home hydro-electric off his pond using the BambuLab unit..unbelievable capability, and a long way from Stereolithography and silicone molds for making proof of concept prototypes.
Something else to sink my time and money into, both of which are surprisingly taken lately.
I downloaded a couple open source CAD in 2 and 3d.
So much different than Autocad….
They’re good for developing mold prototypes. You can assemble the components to see how they come together before you go to mold or pre-CnC Machining.
From Acad v1.0 to now it looks to me – someone who was the last generation to grow up on the drafting board – that we are hitting the asymptotic point of engineering design/build as the software and machine capabilities close in on Start Trek level brilliance. GIGO still applies, the software may be terrific in ferreting out problems, but the concept fundamentals still have to work.
Keuffel and Esser CAD.
** Planetary balance in a universe of extremes.
” Somehow we bound balance that’s nothing short of cosmic perfection”
I kind of expected “miracle”.
You got one. You are the miracle, Ed.
X2! He did, and came out the other side seemingly without a hitch. I’d call that a miracle.
I do like the opening photo of your drone factory!
All lined up and nowhere to go.
Looking forward to the book! And yes, ‘cheep’ UAVs can be made at home, but the software/hardware to make them ‘do’ things is not all that cheap at the footprint size you really want/need. BTDT, and it UPenn 4 years to get it right the first time.
>Are you too old or jaded to read a fairy tale?
Too old? Good heavens, tales of the Fair Folk are NOT for children. Other than to terrify them, that is. But tell the “real” story. That’s one reason I seriously disliked a whole bunch of Disney as a child. Stuff should not be cutesified. (If you want cutesy, fair enough — bad taste is not illegal, but make your OWN cutesy stuff. Don’t wreck existing “IP”.) In that vein, that abomination of a cartoon for The Jungle Book really put me off, with the stupid musical numbers and Kaa the python turned into a goofy villain instead of the ancient and terrifying force of nature he was in the book. I refused to watch the Disney movie as a wee child. When I finally read The (actual Kipling) Jungle Book as a teenager I loved it. Still do. And don’t get me started that damn orangutan plopped into India in the movie. Not Borneo, India (FFS). Anyway.
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Too jaded for faerie stories is a different matter. Faerie. Children are all but forced fed “fairy” (and trans) stories and characters these days. Thank you, Netflix, and Disney, and Pixar, and all the other corporate globoqueer media conglomerates.
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OT Rant: So I’m working with a new statistician. Very nice person, seems technically competent, but straight out of school and apparently without any realworld experience. (This is not an uncommon problem in the interface between medicine types and stats types.) This is not the specific project we are working on, but the idea and problem is analogous. Say there is a treatment, call it X, that purports to extend lifespan. Now X has costs and risks/side effects, so we want to make sure it really does extend lifespan. We have data at baseline, and at 1, 5, and 10 years comparing otherwise balanced (age, sex, comorbidities, etc) groups with a control group not getting X and a group treated with X. The stats person does his work and comes back with, “Yes, lifespan IS different between controls and treatment group at 5 and 10 years, but not at 1 year! Huzzah!” Okay, great. But I need you to tell me: 1) is lifespan LONGER with X than without? You tested for difference and found Significant Difference (huzzah), but you didn’t tell me directionality. Is lifespan longer or SHORTER on X? 2) What is the actual difference? If X extends lifespan by 3 days at 5 years, and 4 days at 10 years, but it costs $100 per week, well, it’s not a slam dunk to recommend X in that case. But if X adds three healthy years for $100/week, then hell yeah. (Or say it’s not a drug costing $100/week, but a surgical procedure that has a 0.1% chance of causing permanent quadriplegia. Is it worth it to undergo the risk of X?) Statistical significance is well and good, but “What Do It Mean, Dr Nachural?”
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TL;DR: to some people, numbers are numbers, period F-ing dot. But the numbers have ZERO physical meaning to them. Sigh.
Numbers, figures, charts and graphs – this will be my epitaph.
Welcome back.
Half Life; Yeah! The outline is being worked into a full book :). As per my review on A, I’m not usually NOT an avid sci fi reader, but Half Life really intrigued me. Thanks for sharing your M.O. for writing, editing and marketing pursuits. As Monk stated, ” It’s a jungle out there”.
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Random related posts; My mentor ( a very silent reader and perhaps only commenting as an alias) and I both enjoy this feature of V.M.
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7/23/2009 popped up for me at least today. Our author’s encounter with Opus “a galactic princess turned Jedi” is described. Also a mention of communication with other bloggers/ authors. It’s interesting that the mental wheels were spinning a bit back when you were employed ” Full time”. My humble opinion is that about 1/2 of the V.M. readers are still working a 9-5. For us other wise, your ambitions to ” fill your time” to the fullest as mentioned the other day is very motivational for me personally : -)
Opus#6, introduced me to blogging. She was also a friend of Woodsterman (Odie), Old NFO, DRJIM and other of our blogging group. So yes, a real person and Jedi warrior.
Immediately had two thoughts on your…err…commentary:
1) DrMrsPaulM, DVM was working in one of the conglomerated vet clinics (yes, them)…fully outfitted, excellent working spaces. Patient of ‘Head DVM’ came back in for a recheck with no change in condition. As MrsPaulM was covering for said DVM she looked at he notes then did her exam fresh, noting clinical sign, then ran a simple $60 test to make her determination. Dog (excuse me, ‘canine’) was quickly on its way with the proper meds and protocol. Got better. Head DVM was reviewing the cases in his absence a few days later, asked why she didn’t run the $1000 tests (yes, multiples) to make her determination. MrsPaulM says, “Why would I do that when the less costly test told me all I needed to know and the more expensive multiple tests would have been extra cost for no gain or change in meds and protocol while putting the patient through a lot.” His answer: “Because we have to pay for the clinic overhead.” She soon left that place.
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2) You were “a wee child” once? …. No way. I’m betting you came out giving ‘creative’ clinical assessments of your surroundings. (Kidding)
Huh… I did click on MikeC’s ‘reply’ button.
😆