It’s the 50th anniversary edition of Wednesday What We’re Reading, in which we… don’t really do anything out of the ordinary.

Defense

• Lightweight stainless/aluminum ammunition coming? – See also discussion on Discord of how much extra volume you get in a cartridge of the same size.
• Thrym invents beer gut replacement for operators – It’s an electronics case which fits, at least optionally, to the front of a plate carrier, so you can open it up and look down at your phone, or what-have-you.
• The US still needs carriers – Roughly a year in to What We’re Reading, and it’s as true as it ever has been.
• F-35 testing delays continue beyond its combat debut – Thinking face emoji.
• The Columbia boomers are on track for their scheduled delivery… – … but 2028 is a long way off, and more problems like the one with missile tube welds recently could push that date.
• The Navy Reserve is broken – Not as an organization, but in terms of actually paying its reservists.
• China builds an amphibious assault ship/baby carrier in a year or so, probably – Pictures of its keel under construction appeared late this past spring. It’s unclear how much work was done before then, at least in sources I can get at.
• Branch of service which operates boats beats branch of service which operates airplanes to airplane readiness goals
• Good Loren Thompson alert: five reasons the Digital Century series is doomed to failure – The most compelling reason is that, by and large, the original analog-era Century Series failed.
• Winchester selected to operate Lake City ammo plant – Is it a tell for the next-gen squad weapon? After all, Winchester is working with one of the competitors.
• Useless Camo Pattern retired today
• Armata program continues to deflate – Down to 130 tanks, and much of the fancy technology from the original demonstrator vehicles is gone.
• First photo of the new Chinese rifle – Not a bullpup, American-esque barrel lengths.

Science and Technology

• LockMart gets another cost-plus contract for the Orion spacecraft – After 15 years of development, this is a cost-plus contract to deliver six units, which will presumably be renewed even after we’ve all died working in Grand Overseer Musk’s Marsium mines.
• Our county uses hackable surveillance cameras – Time for a campaign of guerilla camera vandalism?
• Tesla debuts summon mode – No-driver Teslas immediately start hitting things in parking lots.
• Samsung Galaxy Fold lasts at least six days – More on this record-breaking performance as we have it.
• What can you solve with a quantum annealer? – Ars Technica explains why you might want one of those big D-Wave jobbers.

Nerd Culture

• Spider-Man back in the MCU, at least for now – This is a good thing. Tom Holland is the best live-action Spidey to date, and Sony’s track record, box office takes notwithstanding, is mixed at best¹.

Grab Bag

• Brexit and the British judiciary – Parliamentary government is weird. At the same time, the institution of Parliament, with shouting and dramatic speechgiving, is better than the institution of Congress.
• The article I meant to link with the above summary
• President Xi’s power grabs have cost China a great deal of stability
• Kickstarter laughs at coalition of leftist magazines who want it to be more union-friendly – All of the greatest successes of unions came in the days when they had Pinkertons and fire hoses to deal with anyway.
• Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys – The effects of red meat and processed meat consumption are so small that they only show up in analyses of vast populations. Nutrition scientists were angry at the journal which published the paper because it’s going to damage public confidence in nutrition science.
• Measuring wealth by orders of magnitude – Top-down space game Starsector uses a similar system for measuring population.
• $172 red light camera ticket in Delaware represents is less than $100 and can’t be challenged, court says