Musings of a minor megalomaniac
…at least the part I knew. Cost overruns were getting so common and inflationary it was almost expected by the time I left the program. I was a little surprised the last GEO got built and launched. But the mission lives on, and so does the next gen space-based missile warning system-of-systems.
If the Russians liked those Javelins, they’re really gonna like this High Energy Laser Scaling Initiative:
“The 300-kilowatt laser is ready to integrate with the DOD demonstration efforts, including the U.S. Army’s Indirect Fires Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) Demonstrator laser weapon system.”
After the Ikonos contract ran it’s course, I almost got a job with the Lockheed branch then-called Coherent Technologies in Louisville where they developed this thing. It’s always fun breaking stuff, as opposed to building it.
Here’s a quick tip for anybody concerned with their online privacy and security: Don’t use apps, plugins, add-ons or really anything that doesn’t come shrink-wrapped or checksum-verified from the source. Even that shrink-wrapped stuff can be a little sketchy, if you’re not careful (Solarwinds!) The 1s and 0s mixing it up on your electronic devices are pretty much out of control once you get more than 1 or 2 levels removed from the platforms on which they stand.
I haven’t trusted much beyond the operating system(s) that wasn’t open source for decades. Even those can be tricky. I stopped trusting Micro$oft at all, after the push for maximum subscription monetization back around the turn of the century. The old KISS maxim applies: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Betcha Tom Selleck’s slow cousin Mike LIndell’s got enough crap on that thing to keep the FBI busy for quite awhile. Coded just right, software itself can be a form of misinformation.
Here’s your “Special Military Operation.” “Terms like regrouping and redeploying are used by authoritarian regimes when their forces are in retreat.”
Looks like Alaska along with Idaho and Northern California get burned off this season.
“On the personal side, I also intend to pause twitter activity, as I notice current microblogging platforms tend to mostly contain flame wars, self promotion, or shared links I could find anyway with a good feed reader.”
I would exhort Emmanuel to go ahead and take the next step: Run your own site like I do. It’s not that difficult for anyone with a modicum of administrative ability and probably alot safer from a security standpoint, as well. The ISPs are running back-haul caching servers for their own purposes, so bandwidth is not going to be an issue in many cases.
The whole Web3/Crypto push is nicely idealized in their de-centralized vision(s), but presently lacks any practical development, implementation or operational tenets with the usual exceptions of attempting to generate value where none exists.
This is what I’m talking about. Sometimes you just have show the cocksuckers what they are. They don’t understand normal communications. Chaz Stevens knows how to get the job done.
“It’s simple — it’s empowering hypocrisy itself, turning bureaucracies against themselves, figuring out what the bureaucratic hypocrisy is,” Stevens said.
As a 22-yo Airman 1st Class hangin’ tapes at Buckley Air National Guard base in 1983, I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into. By the time Lockheed laid me into retirement, I was doing test and integration work for the Block 10 iteration of the most amazing space-based ISR asset the world has ever seen. Then it was the Space-Based Infra-Red System (SBIRS). Not sure what nomenclature it’s labelled with now other than just another piece of our space-faring system-of-systems.
The first airliner I flew at around ten years old IIRC, had four propellers and we were delighted to be treated to an actual hot meal during the flight. Even during many long flights on military aircraft of all types during a twenty-year Air Force career, one thing almost never changed: They always launched on time. Today’s air travel is driven by only one primary business motivation. It’s not serving customers, growing or improving the business or even keeping the shareholders happy. Turning a profit seems to be the only thing that matters now.
Yeah, things like pandemics and TSA screw up everything. Join the club. But you greedy airline executives can go fuck yourselves after getting billions in bailout money to keep the skies open. What should we expect if you can’t get the job done on the dole?
And if I don’t see some movement on the biofuel topic, I’m gonna get real mean next time.
It’s not like the warnings haven’t been rising to an urgent crescendo for years, while greedy petroleum industry interests continue raping the planet. Now the models have enough data to get a bit more specific.
“In Ukraine’s south, Russian military regiments have dug in mostly around rural villages. The fighting there is often the most intense, trapping communities between artillery fire from both sides.”
Perhaps Russia’s biggest issue going forward will be having committed these atrocities in what used to be their own back yard.
DeSuckass is doing a great job suppressing knowledge in the Sunshine State. Floridians are now going to be not only un-woke, but in many cases completely un-educated if the school districts don’t find quite a few more teachers. Stupid voters are easy to impress with nonsense buzzword politics. He’s gonna have a little harder time legislating something to gen up many thousand more teachers.
Most people understand how The Stock Market ≠ The Economy. Does sometimes seem they might be more or less symbiotic parasites, tho. 3/4pt – Daaaaaaaaaaaamn.
So many in the transportation sector both government and commercial, seem worried about supply chain issues. Yet we continue shooting ourselves in the foot on this topic, at least when it comes to Cannabis policy and laws.
“That’s bad news for a field that has become a weak link in the U.S. supply chain…”
I’ve been on record with verifiable anecdotal evidence for years. Nobody seems to be paying attention. I imagine they will find and incredibly unbelievable level of THC in my blood after I get stopped by some cop having a bad day, for not using my turn signal.
Fuck Ergodan. Turks need to switch back and start buying Russian weapons again.
Maybe my inputs at the demand rate meeting a few years ago were received. They couldn’t see how to easily solve the high peak demand issue with batteries for some reason. A nice chunk of Tesla equipment was installed over on the frontage road recently, but it’s just a start. I thought things were headed in the right direction. Now we see these fuckwits building out the country on a fossil fuel foundation continuing to perpetrate the ongoing screwup:
These assholes need to stop being dragged kicking and screaming into the future. If they can’t get it through their heads, we’ll just pull a Texas grid failure one of these winters for a little wake-up call here, if necessary.
