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[S @planetsam1]

@LukeTryl To be honest I'm just as fascinated by the Lib Dems. These are generally people in leafy suburbia and the more affluent rurals. And yet even they struggle to be positive.

[S @planetsam1]

@RAndrewCastel @ASo1omons @LouisvilleGun You'll never guess which group of people Tolkien (who GW heavily rips off) based the Dwarves on...

[S @planetsam1]

@bsteinthorsson @Michssspp82096 @Inrap_ActuGO @Inrap Elaborate on what? I'm asking the French archeology institute that found fragments of the same style of statuette, if they agree with my theory that it's a unique representation of the popular god Sucellus, based on the striking similarities of the mallet/barrel motif.

[S @planetsam1]

@Michssspp82096 But you can see one of the barrels on the front side of the statuette , and the array of barrels on the back. Intricate decoration on the back of a statuette is odd unless it happens to be a god famous for having a weird barrel contraption behind him...

[S @planetsam1]

@Michssspp82096 The more I look the more I think it must be a very early Celtic Sucellus. It's interesting because as far as I can see no one seems to know. I've seen some comments saying it might be Cernunnos (doubtful), but the academic record usually just refers to it as the God of Quilly.

[S @planetsam1]

@Gabriel64869839 There is no option where you'll get new aircraft "now" though, especially not usable ones (e.g. block 4 F-35). Any option is going to take years for delivery, at which point you have to wonder whether a ~few years gap between them and GCAP IOC was worth it.

[S @planetsam1]

@TotherChris Is that a jury-rigged pylon underneath?

[S @planetsam1]

@Dr_M_Davis @BuchananLiz If cooperation with the US on SSN(X) was ever on the table then surely it would have been pitched instead of SSN-AUKUS in the first place? Just like NGAD, the idea that the US will partner with AUS on its most sensitive projects is just fantasy.

[S @planetsam1]

@Gabriel64869839 "Babe, wake up, a new BAE UCAV concept just dropped."

They want to fly in 2 years apparently.

https://t.co/WO7aDAudKB

[S @planetsam1]

@Astro_Jonny @chrislintott Fair enough. Though I suspect we're going to start seeing a lot more of these sorts of claims, spurious or not, in the coming years. It's gonna be a wild ride.

[S @planetsam1]

@Astro_Jonny @chrislintott Sure, habitable sub-Neptunian oceans may be a contentious claim, but that does not automatically make it wrong. But It's a lot more nuanced debate than just flat out saying JWST cannot find biosignature gases, which is an Earth-centric assumption.

[S @planetsam1]

@Astro_Jonny @chrislintott Sure, biosignature gases are evidence, not proof. You can get 'biosignatures' on obviously uninhabitable worlds. But the claim that team was making was that some sub-Neptunes may also show evidence of oceans (like K2-18b), and so might in theory be habitable.

[S @planetsam1]

@chrislintott @Astro_Jonny Oh I agree about that specific paper/planet. I'm pointing out that a new claim of a strong detection on a different planet may not be on small rocky world. Jonathan's assumptions are based on what JWST can/can't detect on compact rocky atmospheres, but that may not be relevant.

[S @planetsam1]

@DefAeroNews “"Aaah, but our Eurofighter partners, Italy, and the UK, will welcome us into Tempest!”"

It gets worse. If SA joins GCAP I can see them vetoeing German entry to the project, AND they could ban exports of Tempest to Germany. Germany could end up with no 6th Gen supplier at all.

[S @planetsam1]

@SamRamani2 SCALP-EG has the same range as Storm Shadow, it is virtually identical, not sure where this 3x is coming from. F-16 can't carry SS/SCALP either IIRC.

[S @planetsam1]

@kptzr @TotalKonsult @scootntoot @kvistp I am looking forward to your source that the missiles sent to Ukraine are an export variant. The MoD never stated that.

[S @planetsam1]

@Tweeet_Book @kptzr @TotalKonsult @scootntoot @kvistp The fact that the UK has never ordered an export variant, meaning there aren't any in our inventory. Where is your source that an export variant has been sent? The MoD never said that.