Notices by Dreadnought Holiday (dreadships@mastodon.me.uk)

MV Explorer.

Set off on a "Spirit of Shackleton" cruise 11/11/2007. Re-enacted the spirit of Shackleton in a manner not advertised in the brochure when crew and passengers were forced into small boats whilst their ship succumbed to the ice.

#FailureFriday

In 1944 Prinz Eugen struck a welcome blow for the allied war effort and an unwelcome blow for light cruiser Leipzig, which was nearly cut in half and essentially removed from the Nazi order of battle.

Serves it right for stopping in the middle of a channel in dense fog to swap from diesel to steam power. The fog clearly not the only thing to be a bit thick that morning...

#FailureFriday #CantParkThereMate

Tech bros love to boast about moving fast and breaking things, so it comes as some relief to find an instance where they've moved at a more stately 17 knots and yet still utterly fucked it.

In this case the "it" being carpool vehicles. Programmed to treat movement without the engine being switched on as either theft or witchcraft, they instantly bricked themselves in response.

What happened when these vehicles travelled by ferry was perhaps predictable...

#FailureFriday

@foone I use both bsky and here, and I'm increasingly thinking the ability to quote is the killer app - whether you use it to dunk on a bad idea, make a joke or simply highlight why something is worth reading, it makes it so much easier to spin off a conversation with people you know.

And as others have said, the general vibe of the place is different too - Masto can seem incredibly earnest, and quite often a bit sterile.

@Elmar_Iachi I'm not nearly as vocal about trans rights as I ought to be

Rishi Sunak's position appears to be that it's disgusting to claim he would be transphobic about a dead girl when there's so many live ones to be bigoted about.

Absolute fucking hateful wanker.

Ludicrous shat-through-a-tube future of transport Hyperloop was officially abandoned this week, proving once again that atmospheric railways suck.

The victim of unsolvable technological problems like "going around corners", Hyperloop nonetheless achieved its primary aims of attracting investment away from boring old high speed rail. Y'know, the stuff that actually works.

#FailureFriday

Quarter-scale test model of Vladimir Israilevich Levkov's proposed 120kph "hovering amphibious tank". The inevitable cancellation can be attributed to the usual factors: insufficient political support, a lack of funding, and the cruel and unexpected whims of [checks notes] basic physics.

Looking like a Dalek's commode can't have helped.

#FailureFriday

Seeing rumours that the person in charge of "not letting the top brass get blown up by Storm Shadow missiles today" (very important in Russian navies) has made a last minute entry for #FailureFriday

Here's hoping!

Full disclosure - I don't like to take joy in human suffering.

So hopefully whoever fired the missile hasn't sprained their finger or anything.

I don't know why people are so tickled by an article on ram bows being tagged with the category "boopable snoots", but here we are. DreadShips - writing the nonsense others only whisper...

https://dreadships.com/getting-to-the-point/

@Homoevolutis0 In which sense why? The spring, or why is it bad?

@goatsarah I really ought to give sailing a go - other than one or twice on friend's yachts as a teenager (and only then as ballast, frankly) it's not something I've actually done.

Model of Thomas Meriton's spring-shanked anchor, a concept that - unpromisingly for an anchor - sank without trace.

Modern yachts use a snubber to damp the forces from an anchor. They do not use a half-baked maritime pogo stick.

#FailureFriday

HMS Glatton. A perfectly decent ship apart from that one time it went on fire, started to explode, and was scuttled to prevent taking an ammunition ship and the whole of Dover with it.

Although having been to Dover, I'm still unsure whether a giant crater wouldn't have been the better option.

#FailureFriday

@goatsarah I make sure I do one every #FailureFriday, or at least most of them!

Been a while since I set up this account and ran the various scraper tools (which I assume no longer run). If I ought to be following you here do say something!

@clacke @JohnLoader6 @CamWeck imo you've not read all the Discworld books until you've read them at least twice. With the story arcs and Pratchett's growth as a writer the second read is a different experience.

The BBC confirming the revolution will not, in fact, be televised