one reason why I haven't been tracking military tech recently

I hate getting bad news. From War Nerd:

"I’ve been saying for a long time that aircraft carriers are just history’s most expensive floating targets, and that they were doomed." [Not incidentally, so has Robert A. Heinlein, starting shortly after 1945 with occasional mutters periodically since until he died.]

"But now I can tell you exactly how they’re going to die.

( disputed details at budget time )

BayCon panel schedule

( we cut because energy weapons are not permitted at BayCon )

different reactions to grief and loss (in relationships)

I have a long-standing policy of not discussing my relationship issues on LJ. This post is not directed at any current relationship issues that may be going on in my life.

Consider this hypothetical. Two people are very much in love with each other, however they have irreconcilable differences. Because they are fairly private people, they try to work things out the best they can in private. It doesn't work out. There is a messy breakup. One person, normally cheerful and open, adopts what appears to be a cold, aloof silence. The other person is publicly, painfully hurting and saying things they would not normally say.

Anyone who assumes a damn thing based on what I've just posted is a fool.

Some people in pain draw inward. Others reach out. Some have learned in the bitter school of hard knocks that to unveil one's heart is to be impaled. Others know that they cannot get what they want unless they ask for it, even if the painful answer must be not merely "No" but "Never."

We're people, all of us. We handle death in different ways, even though it patiently waits for all of us.

The end of a relationship is a little death, a potential that merges back into the background. Just as with the big deaths, there are stages of denial, grief, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance ... and rarely in that order! "The bigger they are, the harder they fall." It's harder still when you have to let go of the rope with clear eyes and hope that the other does not fall, knowing full well that you are helpless to affect their trajectory now.

( examples )

Please do your friends, whoever they may be, the courtesy of failing to assume. Wish them well and at least do no harm. Blessed be.