We’re all familiar with the loop-the-loop problem. The basic idea is to take something and propel it around a vertical loop. Pyotr Nesterov dreamed up the stunt more than a century ago.
An accomplished aviator, he completed the manoeuvre on September 9, 1913 in the airspace above the Syretski military airfield in Kyiv. It was the beginning of aerobatics.
In an article, titled "How I made a loop," published in the St. Petersburg newspaper on September 5, 1913, Nesterov wrote:
Nesterov’s loop should not be confused with the graveyard spiral, the type of dangerous downward circling dive entered into accidentally by a pilot who is not trained or not proficient. Other names for this phenomenon include suicide spiral, deadly spiral, death spiral and vicious spiral. It’s the aviation equivalent of Putin’s decision to further invade Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Which brings me to the mummification scenario1 proposed in an article appearing in Poligon about the Ukraine mess, titled The Putin Crucible.
In other news, SIGINT, together with drone and satellite reconnaissance, has consistently produced the most reliable intelligence available since the invasion started. It’s true value as an intelligence source has been achieved because it’s been effectively combined with information produced by other intelligence sources, e.g. HUMINT, into an 'all-source' product flagged, tagged, stripped, df-ed, AI reconfigured, sometimes gisted, analyzed and funneled directly into the brains of Ukraine’s top brass.
Almost 200 reels are available for your listening pleasure here.
Dodging water jets is probably a reference the ingenious water features found at Peterhof Palace. They are called fountain firecrackers, hidden fountains with a comic surprise, disguised as familiar objects or built into the landscape. The water jets of the fountains appear unexpectedly and spray visitors, thereby creating a playful mood. I had enormous fun dodging water jets there as a kid, especially the one disguised as a mushroom.