Posts by Jellied Eel

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

Re: Cleaning Printers that are full of dust

Wouldn't it have been simpler to send a couple of engineers down in a camper van a couple of days ahead of time and supply them with deckchairs, dark glasses and a 'fridge full of cold drinks?

The landing station had it's own on-site engineers, it was just one of those contingency things. So in the event of something wonderful happening, how to get any specialists or spares to site if they were needed. Just one of those fun things I've encountered in industry, ie helicopters and max cargo loads either in the helicopter, or slung underneath. Also one of those fun opex challenges. Finance types might argue that it'd be cheaper to run the site dark, or centralise/reduce spares holding. But then when the SHTF at times like this, doing it properly can save a lot of time, reputation and compensation.

Re: Cleaning Printers that are full of dust

Several years later , we used to come in to work every day to find our desks sprinkled with a grey, gritty substance which management insisted was coal dust from the nearby coal shipping dock. We all knew that it was mummified cat dust!

That used to be traditional, but don't think it ever made it into the building regs. Apparently burying a cat in a wall would keep evil spirits, or ghost mice away or something.

As for Cornwall. One fun time was when there was an eclipse, the best UK viewing spot was Cornwall, and that's where the cable landing stations are. So figuring on the usual traffic chaos, except worse, we chartered a couple of helicopters on stand-by incase we needed to get engineers or kit there in a hurry.

Data breach reveals distressing info: People who order pineapple on pizza

Re: I don't understand...

Curry sauce or gravy is not good at all.

Oh Canada would disagree, politely of course. And add cheese curds. But then grated cheddar on hot chips is also good.

(Wasn't this supposed to be about pizza? Have we gone off topping?)

Re: I don't understand...

Ketchup is an abomination. Only mayonnaise is a suitable condiment for 'frites'

Bah humbug. Chips should be served as $deity intended, with salt and vinegar.. preferably from the pickled onion jar!

Re: I don't understand...

I usually buy pizzas with pineapple as that's the best way to ensure there's no garlic which SWMBO doesn't like.

Hmm.. I'd never considered that. Then again, I like pizzas with ham, pineapple and anchovy. I'm also wondering what data aggregators and miners could make from this new data. Dislikes garlic, orders a lot of sunblock, location tracking shows all activity after dark. I guess if vampires and immortals do exist, data mining and facial recognition is going to make it a whole lot harder to stay in the shadows.

Also as there are elections coming up, if there are political preferences. Do Democrats or Republicans prefer pineapple? Could swing voters be tempted by the right (or left) toppings? Also medical. I have that annoying gene that makes corriander/cilantro taste nasty, but maybe there's some genetic rather than social reason why people dislike pineapple. But I suspect it'll just get used to flog us stuff we don't want.

Russian allegedly smuggled US weapons electronics to Moscow

Re: Why bother?

The russian defender has arrived I see..

As has the defender of this? Those that ignore history etc..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia

The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Polish: rzeź wołyńska, lit. 'Volhynian slaughter'; Ukrainian: Волинська трагедія, romanized: Volynska trahediia, lit. 'Volyn tragedy') were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population against the Polish minority in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, parts of Polesia and Lublin region from 1943 to 1945.

Re: Why bother?

I'm not sure calling Russians "Orcs" is racism, particularly if done by Ukrainians, a majority of whom are basically the same ethnic group. Had history turned out differently the capital of Russia might still have been Kyiv/Kiev. Although from the outside I don't claim to understand the culture

Here's wiki-

Especially in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters, contrasting with the benevolent Elves... The orc was a sort of "hell-devil" in Old English literature, and the orc-né (pl. orc-néas, "demon-corpses") was a race of corrupted beings and descendants of Cain, alongside the elf, according to the poem Beowulf

Similar stereotypes were long used to characterise black people, again by the mad Austrian as subhumans, as well as the Slavs. So it's strange when we're supposedly far more tolerant and have laws against racial slurs that so many use 'orc' so casually. There are also nuances to ethnicity and race behind this conflict. Some Ukrainians view themselves as 'European' rather than slavic. Some view themselves as 'Vikings', although that's a verb rather than a noun. But then there's still a fair bit of debate around the origins of the 'Rus', ie Varagians or Khazars, or a mix. But that's history for you. Ukraine and Kiev found itself in the fortunate (or unfortunate) position of being on a popular trade route, which many of it's neighbors wanted. Then just last century, it's had to deal with a few wars, famines and population migration. Then, much as with the mad Austrian, a subset of Ukrainians have attempted to redefine what 'Ukrainian' means, and if you're not in that group, well, that's too bad.

Politically, it's probably simpler. Voting history in Ukraine shows a pretty clear distinction between east and west, with people in the west more likely to be pro-Russian. That's pretty much why Ukraine's civil war started in 2014. The bad news for the Banderites who want a pure, independent Ukraine is they're going to need to re-populate, and the EU has a lot of immigrants it wants to offload. Very few will speak Ukrainian, but then relatively few Ukrainians do either.

Russia is going to have to do a lot to live down its recent history. It might do well to learn from Germany in particular. OK their genocidal policies in Ukraine have been of the mild variety, the wholesale destruction of civilian targets, ethnic cleansing, targetted murders of local political leadership..

All of which Ukraine has been doing as well. Or we have. See Yugoslavia for more info. Or the way we've brought democracy to Libya. Where you can now buy slaves. Or you could just look at the history of Ukraine's civil war. The Bbc's tugging at heart strings with a story about Ukrainian casualties. There have been many, with life-changing injuries that will need extensive, and expensive long-term support. But Ukraine also created thousands of similar casualties in it's 8 years of bombing and shelling Donbas.. Which is still ongoing, and pretty much ignored by the West. But it's also why this conflict began.

As for your comparison of the MARS/M142 / HIMARS/M270 system to Grad, you're just being silly. I think the Russians invented multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) in World War II - the Allies used similar rocket artillery as part of amphibious invasions, but not in general operations.

Not really. I think the Germans arguably invented it with their Nebelwerfer and we swiftly copied it with things like the Sherman Calliope and truck mounted systems. Or you could argue we pioneered it with the Congreve rocket. Or we borrowed that idea from the Chinese. But then we seem to have abandoned the idea, whereas Russia continued to develop their systems.

Although I think the US have a fragmentation warhead that nobody in Europe has bought for theirs yet. Even artillery is becoming a precision weapon, with laser-guided and GPS guided shells.

I'm assuming you mean the M30A1/2 rockets? 182,000 pre-formed tungsten fragments for area effects. Ukraine has been given a lot of those, and has fired them into Donbas. It's one of those polite myths that we only use 'precision weapons', yet know damn well they have a devastating and indiscriminate area effect.

The updated GIMLRS guided missiles is how Ukraine were able to use HIMARS to make the bridges in Kherson unusable with precision strikes. You could measure the regular spacing between hits in some of the photos I saw. We didn't give Ukraine unguided rockets, but then they have their own ex-Soviet GRADs for that.

Not from what I saw. But then the M31 only has a 23 kg explosive warhead, and is primarily a fragmentation weapon. So those ended up making easily patched holes that weren't much worse than you'd find on a typical British or American road. Eventually Ukraine got more artillery in range to prevent patching up. But one of the problems is a lot of the Ukrainian bridges were massively overengineered with future wars in mind, so St Himars only tickles them a bit. Meanwhile, Russia has started using it's cheap FAB-500 and possibly 1500kg bombs, which have been destroying bridges supplying Ukrainian forces, and will slow any future retreat. There's also the PR-friendly and mostly symbolic attacks on the Kerch bridge. An even more expensive way to make a hole in a bridge that's apparently been repaired already. Or attacking a couple of unserviceable, combat incapable ships sitting in a dry dock. But that may also be why the West is slowly losing patience with Ukraine.

Personally I think we need 5 more frigates, 5 more subs and and a couple more destroyers, more than we need more tanks. And it looks like that's how we'll spend our money.

Agreed. I wonder how much this conflict has affected NATO thinking and future planning. One thing it seems to have shown is quantity vs quality, and the value of cheap drones vs expensive MBTs. Regardless, we seem to have fallen waaay behind in the industrial capacity needed to support this kind of conflict.

Re: Why bother?

Russian heavy bombers daren't get closer than the Caspian sea to chuck cruise missiles at Ukraine before running away

That's just Russia being Green, and cutting it's air miles. Why burn fuel getting closer when it's bombers and ships can launch from the Caspian Sea? Think of the CO2 savings!

Re: Why bother?

Strangely, your Orcish friends didn't manage to grab a Caesar ( '90s development ), Challenger 2 ( '90s development ), M270 MLRS ( '80s development ) or HIMARS ( '90s development )...

Yet. But an oddity of this conflict is the use of racial slurs, especially in these enlightened times. Those brutish subhumans that both Tolkien and some mad Austrian wrote about, and in the latter case, wanted to exterminate or enslave. But that casual racism has lead to some fun memes, like the Best Western military being beaten by orcs with shovels.

As for the rest.. M270 and St HIMARS are much the same thing, ie a copy of the Soviet Grad. Like the Grad, there have been some modernisations, like GPS.. which Russia seems to have learned to jam or spoof. But like the Grad, Russia's also developed bigger, louder, faster BM-30 Smerch and 9A53-S Tornado that can launch 122mm, 220mm or 300mm rockets or missiles. Further than the M270 can. And the Russian version is a lot cheaper, as are the missiles, and it seems far more capable of producing them than we can.

But that's equally true of other wunderwaffe. UK production capacity for new Challenger 2's is precisely zero. How many can be upgraded to Challenger 3's depends on how many we gift to Ukraine to lose. And thanks to brilliant Western diplomacy from our fearless 'leaders', we've brought Russia, DPRK and China closer together, massively increasing both existing stockpiles and production capacity.

Meanwhile, the Bbc tells us we're winning, and we need to further de-industrialise to support it's Green agenda. Makes you wonder who the Bbc really works for sometimes, us, or Russia/China?

Lawsuit claims Google Maps led dad of two over collapsed bridge to his death

Re: Pointless to complain.

(For context there is one countywide committee that decides on speed limits, weight limits, etc. When you ask to see the meeting minutes you are told that they haven't published any in 25 years. My MP has also tried and received the same answer, but now he is a minister he has no time to pursue this abuse.)

If you had been successful, you might have discovered that for revenue raising reasons, the minute used in mph calculations had been altered. But twat-nav errors are fun. There was a nice pub in Reading that overlooked a popular sat-nav short cut over a river. Mapping company probably assumed it was a bridge, even though on OS maps it was clearly marked as a ford, and may a Ford was hydrolocked. I guess they're uncommon enough that people don't know they really should look at the level gauge, and have some clue how much over the air intakes the water level is. Used to provide some free exercise though.

If anyone finds an $80M F-35 stealth fighter, please call the Pentagon

Re: I could have understood not mentioning it if it was a Starfighter

However the F35 costs several times as much per flight hour - some of which is because the tech isn't mature (it was supposed to be cheaper) and some of which is the downsides of stealth coatings.

Yep, it depends what success looks like, and how you measure it.

But the Russian air force has been mostly reduced to patrolling and lobbing missiles (mostly at civilian targets) from inside Russia. And that's against Ukraine's integrated air defence, which has inferior equipment to Russia's, and smaller numbers. If you want to fight an air war, and NATO do - being far more reliant on air power than the artillery-heavy Russians, then you need to be dealing with those air defences. Something NATO train for, and the Russians supposedly don't.

I think that's again one of those issues where you have to define success, and with a heavy dose of propaganda. There may also be some politics in a constutiional sense, ie Russia has limits on the forces it can use outside of a formal declaration of war. The 'mostly at civilian targets' is also a bit of a myth as we're expected to take it on trust that they were civilian targets. The NYT just posted an article on this-

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/18/world/europe/ukraine-missile-kostiantynivka-market.html

But evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense missile fired by a Buk launch system.

This stuff happens and has undoubtedly happened before in Ukraine, and it's long been a known issue with GBAD. What goes up, must come down. It's also debateable if Ukraine has an inferior air defence network, after all, it's been given some of the latest and greatest NATO systems, but Ukraine is a huge country and despite media claims, the systems almost certainly aren't '97% successful'. Russia has now got experience in countering those systems, and it's own SEAD. This seems to be successful as Russia appears to be launching more attacks using it's FAB-500 and possibly FAB-1500 glide bombs. This is also part of measuring success. The media spins this as success or failure in capturing territory. Ukraine's much hyped counter-offensive has taken maybe 50km^2 and a couple of small villages, but at a very large cost. Russia hasn't launched strategic bombing raids and Groznyfied or Sarajevo'd Kiev, but maybe it doesn't want to.

It's interesting times though. Yesterday there were reports of Russia using a longer range drone to attack an airfield around 70km away from the front lines, supported by a recon drone. It's very much a drone war, so how that will play into NATO doctrine and future decisions. We've already demonstrated SEAD during the GW2's 'Shock and Awe' multi-media extravaganza with a lot of drones used to expose Iraq's air defences around Baghdad and other cities. Russia's followed the same doctrine with ancient Bears carrying modified Kelt and other long-range missiles acting as decoys to saturate air defences around carriers, and has been doing the same thing in Ukraine.

Which I think still goes back to whether the F-35 is the best aircraft. Sure, it's assumed stealthy, but maybe Russia can detect it. It's had some upgrades, but isn't stealthy if it's carrying external stores. Or it's more powerful radar might extend it's engagement envelop, but if it's radiating, it's no longer stealthy. What does seem clear is Ukraine seriously lacks CAS, and as the old saying goes, quantity has a quality all of it's own.

Re: I could have understood not mentioning it if it was a Starfighter

People keep saying the F-35 is a failure, which is a bit weird, given that almost all the information on its performance is classified, so the only people able to make that call should be working at the Pentagon...

The US is fairly open about this stuff sometimes. So there's been a couple of lengthy reports from the GAO on the F-35. Being the GAO, they're mostly from a cost perspective, but highlight a lot of the issues over it's lifetime. Many of those seem to be down to being designed by committee, creating problems that resulted in delays or rework or if there's been a lot of scope-creep and bloat that have made the aircraft(s) less useful. Then there have been a few reported incidents and groundings, but AFAIK that's pretty normal, ie something went wrong, so ground the fleet until you've figured out why.

Also curious how current events will change aircraft development. So there's been much news about the F-16s recently, which have a reputation for being a bit delicate and need a lot of logistics. The F-35 seems to be all that and more, so if simpler, more rugged designs like Saab's Gripen will be the future.

Re: Check..

I reckon it was aliens. More specifically, First Contact is about to be from their lawyers on the subject of patent infringement.

It's an interesting design challenge though. Make an aircraft that's as stealthy as possible. So unlike civilian aircraft, probably don't want transponders or black boxes squawking it's location, even if it has crashed. I guess there's a lot of risks that that could be detected, spoofed to turn it on, the intelligence value from an intact black box recorder, or even just the potential extra noise from having something like that plumbed in.

Check..

Craigslist, or maybe the War Thunder forums?

It's technology gorn mad. So stealthy it can't be found! Would have thought that if it ended up in a lake, there'd be some surface debris or oil leaks to help locate it.

Having read the room, Unity goes back to drawing board on runtime fee policy

Re: Too little, too late

In fact, that's the only way I'd consider sticking with Unity if I were a game dev: if they fired the CEO whose brilliant idea this was.

But he's from EA, home of the microtransaction.

On which point, the Unity saga mentioned changes to Unity's ad engine and analytics and changes to these elements as part of the new licences. Also that Unity had the ability to track and monitor every install. I know some games give an option to allow or deny analytics, but now I'm going to have to go back and Wireshark some to see if they're ignoring consent, the GDPR and hoovering up data anyway. So I expect that phase 2 of their cunning plan would be to increasingly monetise ad slinging, and trousering that revenue as well.

South Korean telco SK Broadband and Netflix call a truce in network payment fight

Re: SK Broadband is still being unreasonable

I've said this before and I'll say it again, why does SK Broadband think it has the right to single out Netflix and wring money out of it ?

Easy-

SK claimed Netflix, which was responsible for five percent of South Korea's Q4 2020 traffic, owed $24 million in 2020 network usage fees.

But it's a decades old debate that is mostly unresolved. Netflix's solution doesn't really help because most of the costs come from the edges of the network. Streaming increases ISPs costs, but without some form of cost-sharing, the only way to cover those costs is to increase broadband fees. Bigger issue is congestion management and avoidance, ie terabytes of relatively delay insensitive traffic swamping more delay sensitive and causing packet loss. Solution to that are CoS and QoS, but that opens up the whole 'Net Neutrality' can of worms.

Curious to see what deal was done between SK and Netflix though, especially as Netflix has helped promote K-TV and cinema, who make content that's often waaaay more fun than the Hollywood garbage. Not sure how ownership works between SK content producers and SKT though because Korean business/industrial conglomerates are strange beasts.

Google throws California $93M to make location tracking lawsuit disappear

Someone, somewhere in Google, made the decision to collect and use data illegally and that person needs to take responsibility and the resultant punishment, even if it's a "rogue engineer". Lets see how staff react when the realise they may be thrown under the bus.

Simple solution.

Every Alphabet (all subsidiaries) employees has a web page that displays all their data, as collected by Alphabet and updated in real-time. Sure, they may wibble about privacy, but what about ours? Want to track their C***-level execs and find out where they are right now, where they've been, have a look at their address books, message history, browsing habits? They should be ok with this, after all they collect that data from us.

Probe reveals previously secret Israeli spyware that infects targets via ads

Re: Insanet only selling to Western nations?

What is it about modern Operating Systems that render then so susceptible to hacking.

They're designed from the ground up to be insecure, offering features and functionality most users neither want nor need. So every time there's a new OS update, we need to buy a faster PC, more memory etc just to run the bloated OS. Then all that stuff gets hidden under the hood, so most users just leave well alone. Like just fire up Task Mangler in a Windows box and try to make sense of what all the processes & services running do, and why they're running.

Sadly, the genie has been long out of the bottle. Legislators have some simple solutions. Like pop-ups on install asking "Do you want advertising, stalking?" Yes, or fsk off. But legislating something like that would cause Big Tech to become small tech because they're making billions from collecting and flogging our personal data. Then there's all the shady shite with 'dark patterns'. I think the solution involves inviting 'advertising execs' to a conference somewhere and just shooting the feckers. It's a sad sign the way our society is going that so many 'executitves' think that wholesale privacy invasion and monetisation is acceptable.

Apple's iPhone 12 woes spread as Belgium, Germany, Netherlands weigh in

Re: Follow the money

It's frequently not as nefarious as that.

Sure it is. The drug dealers discovered it. They'd designed their injectable nanobots based on the stated regulations and EMR, then discovered iPhones exceeded it and were EMP'ng the nanobots. This was obviously a serious situation, with potentially massive revenue implications given iShiney owners tend to be a) gullible and b) wealthy. It became more critical after governments appeared to be reluctant to offer 'free' updates this winter. However there may be some upside as the wealthy & gullible may be the most likely to pay for the update anyway.

Meanwhile, damn the EU! This kind of news is exactly what the 'electrosensititves' and other mobile phone luddites wanted so they can say they're right, and mobiles are dangerous. Which is of course true, but also in a postively Darwinian sense given the number of people leaving the gene pool taking selfies or otherwise distracted.

(Hmm.. wonder if I could make a conspiracy theory that 'proves' assorted fillers absorb this dangerous radiation, and might explode? Made the mistake of looking at the DM earlier, and people have a strange sense of beauty these days.)

Meet Honda's latest electric vehicle: A rideable suitcase

Re: hundreds of tiny legs

and where, pray, would those tiny legs come from?

It's probably best not to get too close, or examine too closely.

And what would be the means of tinyleg propulsion?

Soul food I think.

With a Hayabusa engine swap, should be quite fast!

US amends hypersonic weapons strategy: If you can't zoom with 'em, boom 'em

Re: Hypersonic marketing bollox

If any country launches a hyper sonic weapon at my country, our response will be immediate and ferocious. I will release enough nuclear weapons to turn your country into a radioactive crater, irrespective of the civilian casualties. Period. You have been warned.

This is really the problem with MAD and arms races. With MAD, one side launches, everyone dies so it hasn't been a great idea. As missile defences have improved, that's started to fall apart. If one side can shoot down the other's missiles, it can launch it's own with impunity. If missiles are based closer to likely targets, reaction times are lowered and you might be able to launch a first-strike without triggering a counter-strike. So you might be able to 'win' a nuclear war. Then if one side has good anti-missile tech, the obvious counter is to make better missiles that are harder to counter. Or make more of them, but so far limits on total numbers of warheads and missiles have kind of prevented an overmatch.

So we've been heading to a situation where first-strike capabilities have been improving. Along the way, there have also been some other bad ideas.. Like fitting ICBMs with conventional warheads. A little risky given targets won't know if they're carrying conventional warheads or instant sunshine until they detonate. So detect launch, launch counterstrike. Or, if response times are shortened, more likely to think about the old 'fail deadly' systems that automatically launch a counter-strike. Then hope they aren't false alarms, false flags etc. There's also been pressure to use tactical nuclear weapons as bunker busters or in other battlefield situations.. Again, really not a good idea.

And sadly, the number of nations with nuclear capability has been growing, not shrinking.

Re: Destructive Uber Bomb Mentality

I'm kinda curious how effective a nuclear-Nike may have been anyway. ICBMs are hardened against radiation and thermal, but I guess anything close to the detonation is still going to have a very bad day.

Re: Ukraine

Has apparently been able to knock out some of Russia's hypersonic missiles with the US Patriot antimissile system and the Israeli equivalent. They weren't designed for that, and it doesn't work every time, but it is impressive it works at all.

They claim to have, but haven't really produced much in the way of convincing evidence, ie video and photos of something they call a Kinzhal, but almost certainly isnt. But in theory, they were designed for that, ie an ICBM on it's descent phase from low orbit is often hypersonic. But then there's a long history of disputed claims around the Patriot dating back to their success rate against Scuds during the Gulf War. Bush claimed '97%', but never trust anyone who's 97% certain without strong evidence to support that.

There were also disputed claims around testing, so the use of specially designed targets that would explode nicely. A big issue with missile defence was realised in the GW. So a SCUD with a chemical (or nuclear) warhead is on it's descent. You may poke a few holes in it, but gravity is still going to win, and the missile is coming down. If the warhead is still viable, it's still going to do damage although if a chemical warhead, that might be localised if it doesn't airburst. But this is also the other problem. Both missile and interceptors are coming down, and may cause damage to civilian buildings, as has happened in Israel, and is happening in both Ukraine and Russia's territory.

On the plus side though, I assume we're collecting a ton of performance data about these missiles, so next-gen systems might perform better. Still a wicked problem to solve given the velocities involved, and the need to kill rather than just wing an incoming missile.

When does tackling pandemic misinfo become censorship? US courts argue it out

Re: Don't like the way you are framing this

So, it's nice that we can have this back-and-forth about masks work / don't work (actually, it's not nice it's boring as hell now) but in 2020 / 2021 this was strictly verboten and would get you shadow banned or deplatformed.

I think it's the dangers of relying on 'misinformation specialists' to filter information to the public, in the midst of a moral panic. The messaging got mixed up, and complexity kind of glossed over. The CDC, along with pretty much every public health organisation knew damn well what level of masking was likely to work. It's kind of epidemeology 101. If there's airborne transmission, all that is well understood with a ton of data about particle sizes typically expelled during coughs & sneezes. They also generally set the standards for masks and public safety.

Then it got to the public, and the message was simplified to 'wear a mask, or else!'. Even though most masks would have very little effect, and even less when there were tons of videos of people not wearing their masks correctly, ie not covering their noses. Good business if you were lucky enough to win contracts, but not as good as it could have been. Most of the masks are single-use, yet many people didn't get that message making them even more pointless other than as a compliance test. It's also had an interesting effect as a counter to facial recognition systems by normalising mask-wearing.

Ivermectin is more than an anti-parasitic and it appears to play a part in stopping the blood clotting that can be so dangerous in serious covid cases. There has been research into ivermectin for inflammatory diseases and covid is very much inflammatory.

This is why it was interesting to me. Heard it mentioned, looked it up, wondered why it might be effective? Then wondered why there was so much opposition to even suggesting it as a treatment. Correct response should have been to get some rapid clinical trials going, and find out. But there were many drug dealers (like the Balm of Gilead) making many claims, many of which didn't seem to generate the same level of denial as humble Ivermectin.

Far from being a 'horse pill', it's very widely prescribed and has been for a long time, so there's a ton of data wrt to it's safety, side-effects and tolerance. Unlike many of the alternative drugs that were proposed. Sure, there are always risks using drugs off-lable, but the attacks on clinicians and physicians for even daring to suggest it seemed rather extreme. But that's politics. Now we've had a lot more experience treating the disease and it's symptoms, as well as knowing who's likely to be at risk, there doesn't seem to be much justification for repeating the lock-down madness and jab frenzies that we had before. Especially when in many cases, the cure was far worse than the disease.

Re: Freedom and democracy are messy things

...except in this case, we have many decades of extensive research showing that smoking and second-hand smoke is, indeed, very bad for health.

Ah, but like the panic-demic, how bad? Some people might smoke all their lives and never develop lung or other cancers. Some may never smoke and develop lung cancer. We don't really know exactly who or why some do and some don't, but we have the 'precautionary principle'. And the world's second most expensive tobacco in the UK at £30+ for 50g. Sin taxes can be very lucrative.

But there are obvious risks to smoking, so it's not a good idea to start. But there's data that shows supposed smoking-related illnesses haven't decreased in line with the decline in smoking. So would seem obvious that other factors are involved, ie other particulate pollution or mebbe just solvents in potions and lotions to make us, our clothes and our homes smell 'clean' and 'fresh'. And it was much the same with the cough. Scientists say.. and models say.. a load of bollocks really. But those relied on assumptions that were later found out to be incorrect, or risks that were exagerated.

But like with taxes, fear can be extremely lucrative so as we drift into flu, jabbing and election season, it's a good time to remind people that the threat might still exist, and only the government and it's drug dealers can save us! Jab early, jab often because this winter, it could be you! Plus our shareholders want another round of bumper dividends, and if we don't keep flogging billions of doses of placebos, our 10-Qs will show a steep revenue fall.

Questioning the status-quo has been the driving force in expanding knowledge for centuries.

Yep. Scepticism is rather fundamental to science, which is probably why some sceptics got re-branded as deniers.

Anyone claiming to be the defacto source of 'the truth' or claiming 'the science is settled' should not be trusted.

At least Minitrue is honest, if Orwellian. They usually openly admit that the Bbc's minions are 'misinformation specialists', and 'checking' or 'checked' has multiple meanings, ie to stop or block. So their 'fact checkers' frequently try to stop, or check facts from spreading. They even have a handy explainer!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/help-41670342

Our editorial values say: "The trust that our audience has in all our content underpins everything that we do. We are independent, impartial and honest. We are committed to achieving the highest standards of accuracy and impartiality and strive to avoid knowingly or materially misleading our audiences.

Again, Orwell would be proud! Problem of course is when they intentionally mislead their audience, and the audience twigs to this, they lose that trust. But no problem, they can stil sic their subscription collectors on anyone who doesn't believe in the Bbc's fiction.

As for Covid, the problem is there was (and still is) a lot of false certainty. What we do know is a lot of the 'facts' and 'fact checking' done at the beginning of the panic-demic were false, or highly uncertain. Problem is the heavy handed censorship resulted in real harm. It's also still ongoing, ie I've been following good'ol Ivermectin, and still not sure if that has any effect, or not. But some of the early propaganda was disgraceful, ie "Do not take it, you are not a horse!" which overlooked the fact that millions of humans have and do take it as a very useful anti-parasitic. It seemed worthy of a proper clinical trial at least. But in those early days, the drug dealers were looking to maximise their profits, and if a cheap generic worked, it'd be hard to make billions selling patented palliatives

Morgan Stanley values Tesla's super-hyped supercomputer at up to $500B

Re: Tesla

Ironically, it probably won't - Crysis wasn't written to take advantage of multiple cores, so performance doesn't scale well at all...

Hmm.. Aha! 101 uses for a pseudo-AI! Speedrunning records! Multiple cores running multiple instances with some machine learning to test and optimise outcomes. Collect speed running record! But I'm not entirely convinced that justifies a $500bn valuation.

Re: Tesla

But then, this is Morgan Stanley, who has been on the wrong side of almost everything it touches, so if they think that building this computer makes Tesla more valuable then it's probably safe to assume Tesla's stock is going tank even more than it already did in recent times.

The thundering herd are just doing what they do best. So a pump & dump operation that stays just on the right side of the law. But-

Twentyfive of these chips are meshed in a 5x5 grid using TSMC's chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging tech to form the Dojo training tile.

I'm developing a 7x7 grid, except 7 of the chips in the tile are extra custom, therefore mine should be worth at least $1tn! Buyins are available to early investors who want to get on board the future, once I've figured out the safest jurisdiction to stash the cash or crypto. But I digress. Curious if they'll ever get this to work, but can't quite see the revenue streams given it seems to be a rather custom build. Then again, there are all sorts of neat photogrammetry applications that hold much promise for future versions of GTA. And of course it'll probably run Crysis just fine.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

Keep on defending russia.

I'm not. I'm defending peace & democracy, and attacking the damage this conflict has caused everyone. Not just the dead, maimed and injured in the conflict area. Our 'leaders' have shown zero interest in peace negotiations and instead keep pouring weapons in to keep the blood flowing. Their 'whatever it takes' approach has caused, and will continue to cause immense harm to the West, but our 'leaders' don't care because they're insulated from the effects of their policies. At least until election time, but then when they're unceremoniously booted out of office, can go get another high paying job with an NGO somewhere.

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

The shit "we" stirred was mostly words and politics. Russian shit stirring involved copious amounts of ammunition, explosives and heavier weaponry.

Alternatively, they didn't need to. When the Soviet Union broke up, countries like Ukraine were left with copious amounts of ammunition, explosives, heavy weaponry. Including tanks. Some of which it got a little embarrassed about when pirates hijacked a bunch that were heading for S.Sudan. Like a lot of former Soviet states, corrupt officials made easy money exporting surplus weapons.

Ukrainian forces had disabled them before retreating and no operational systems in Ukrainian control were known to be operation in the area.

So they claim, and yet there were videos of them mobile in the DPR & LPR after they'd been seized. Plus it's not beyond the realm of possibility that they were repaired. They certainly weren't disabled properly, ie DIP'd because there was no wreckage.

IIRC the missile that downed MH-17 was also of a newer design than that operation with Ukrainian forced, immediately discounting them too.

You have that back-to-front. The manufacturer did some test firings to show the difference in fragmentation patterns between the old missiles Ukraine had, and the newer ones in Russian service. The patterns matched the Ukrainian version. It still doesn't alter the fact that Ukraine was responsible for the airspace, knew that there was an active missile threat after it's own aircraft had been shot down yet did not issue a NOTAM informing airlines that avoiding the area would be a good idea. Ukraine had shot down civilian aircraft before, accidents can happen.

More accurately Kiev decided that the only way to stop the rampant corruption problems in the regions under some sort of control, it needed to have some level of oversight and control to enforce against that corruption.

Soo.. you think it's easier to monitor and prevent corruption by moving governance further away? OK, Ukraine has taken this to extremes sometimes. Like giving Mikheil Saakashvili Odessa to play with. He's never been accused or charged with corruption, in either Georgia or Ukraine. But it's also why the USSR had devolved government in the first place. Lots to manage, and if you can trust (or hold enough threats over) your governors, it kinda works, sometimes. So Kiev seized more power following the coup, removed governors who may have been disloyal, appointed friends & family instead and abolished Crimea's parliament, thus clearly violating the Friendship Treaty, and annoying the Crimeans. Something like 70% identified as Russian pre-2013, the results of their independence election showed more that didn't want to be ruled by Kiev. So in accordance with the UN Principles of Self-Determination, they waved goodbye.

Naturally, this annoyed the West because they'd been rather looking forward to a new NATO base and luxury apartments on Crimean's waterfront. The UN supports Scottish independence, it doesn't support Crimean independence. Funny how the world works sometimes.

As with Ukraine it might well be for the better in the long term (we'll never find out now). The Kiev government certainly isn't a shining beacon of non-corruption and open and honest democratic governing, but it was from what I can see a damn sight better than whatever was in place in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea regions.

Oh we will find out, and probably quite soon. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Or it'll be like the Greek's discovered after their economic problems. Congratulations! Ukraine is now a wholly owned subsidiary of BlackRock. A different bunch of oligarchs will begin picking over the scraps, and life for ordinary Ukrainians will change for the worse. Zelensky probably won't survive the experience to be asked how a 2-bit actor, comedian and low-payed public official somehow amassed such a large property portfolio.

But people are making a lot of money already. Billions being poured into Ukraine with little to no accountability. Thousands more Ukrainians will be killed or maimed to feed our 'leaders' egos and vanity. Elections are coming up, the counter offensive has failed, Macron was recently given a heroe's welcome at the Five Nations opening match. So maybe, just maybe they'll decide to give peace a chance and stop the bloodshed? Zelensky could try fleeing to exile or asylum in one of his homes in Israel, but then thanks to non-extradition and banking secrecy laws in Israel, there are already plenty of Ukrainian (and Russians) running much of the organised crime there who could solve a problem like Zelensky.

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

Ukraine has been doing very sketchy shit in Donbass and other regions, I won't deny that, but the reality is that BOTH sides of that conflict have been doing VERY sketchy shit. Something something Russian BUK missile launcher, something something MH-17, to name a thing.

Yep. That one incident was problematic for many reasons. It was a 'Russian' Buk launcher! Sure, Russia manufactured those, then sold them to a lot of nations, including Ukraine. They've still been using them during this phase of the conflict. There were pictures of a Ukrainian base not far from the ruins of Donetsk International Airport where a Ukrainian air defence unit was based. When the civil war broke out, many Ukrainian soldiers who disagreed with Kiev joined the DPR and LPR forces and helped themselves to equipment. Some military aircraft had previously been shot down over Ukraine, so Ukraine knew medium/long range GBAD was operating in the region. Yet Ukraine didn't close the airspace, even though their was a clear and present danger to civilian aircraft transiting Ukraine's airspace. And then an elaborate "Where's Wally?" campaign to 'prove' the launcher and missiles came from Russia, not that they were already there, and in use.

That conflict isn't entirely on Ukraine, Russia has been stirring shit in those regions for a long time even before 2014.

So have we. That's the way the world and geopolitics works. Two wrongs don't make a right, but if we do it, why complain when other nations with their own interests do the same thing?

We didn't lie about Minsk, Russia decided to wipe it's ass with the accords before "we" (who is this "we" exactly in the first place? I certainly didn't get a say in the matter!) got a chance to say anything about it

We did. Merkel admitted it was a pretext to allow Ukraine to be rearmed and retrained. The OSCE reported repeated cease-fire violations. To be fair, Zelensky did try to get the nutjobs doing most of the violations to stop-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgkPpsyUFcM&

But they ignored him and later threatened to kill him. But that's always been Zelensky's problem, he's not really a politician, or a diplomat and isn't really in control of his forces. As for 'we', I'm assuming we're both members of the collective West. As for the grain deal, that was supposed to 'feed the hungry', yet most of the grain shipments headed to the EU. In exchange for permitting grain, we were supposed to allow Russian fertiliser exports. We didn't. Then there was using the 'grain corridor' to launch attacks. We did nothing to stop those either.

In general, Russia's not been willing to talk about any peace proposal that doesn't include Ukraine giving up substantial (far more substantial than Russia is no occupying) portions of sovereign territory. Territory that Russia has no logical, legal or historical claim over and territory that Russia itself has signed treaties over belonging to Ukraine.

Again you ignore history. Russia's made various offers, ie autonomy for DPR and LPR. For much of Ukraine's existence, it's effectively been a federation. From 2014, the new regime decided everything must be ruled from Kiev, and removed autonomy from the regions, including the Crimea and it's parliament. That autonomy and respect for each other's culture and traditions were part of the original 'Friendship' Treaty between Ukraine and Russia when it gained independence. Poroshenko finally completely abandoned that Treaty in 2017. It's a bit like the UK deciding to abandon the idea of Welsh, Scottish and N.Ireland assemblies and deciding everything will henceforth be decided by Westminster. English will be the only official language, so suck it up, buttercups.

You think the Welsh, Scottish, and N.Irish would be happy about that?

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

Ok, so what do we propose?? We let Russia finish it's "denazification"? By which I mean of course it's indiscriminate killing, burning, looting, raping, torturing and all around massacring of Ukrainian civilians like they've been doing in their occupied territories?

Ukraine has been doing that since it's civil war began in 2014. Few in the West really seemed to care though about indiscriminate shelling in Donbas, dropping of PFM-1 anti-personnel mines in the DPR & LPR, cutting off Crimea's water suppy etc etc. Our 'leaders' are also just fine with massacring civilians. We generally call it 'collateral damage' and have killed, maimed and displaced millions during conflicts in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan etc etc. It's just one of those things that happens during armed conflicts.

But like Musk said, we could get serious about peace deals instead. Zelensky isn't serious because he knows his life depends on keeping this going. At the start of the SMO, there was a potential for peace in exchange for autonomy in the DPR & LPR and neutrality. But then BoJo went to Kiev, and that was off the table. Now, 'peace' is supplying more weapons. Ukraine might get ATACMS with it's 220kg warhead so more civilians might die. But Russia just demonstrated it's glide version of it's FAB-1500, or a 1,500kg bomb. AFAIK, it's only been using it's smaller glide bombs, so far.

Downside is we've not been very honest. We lied about Minsk, we didn't bother honoring the grain deal, so why should Russia take any new peace proposal seriously? Especially when other nations are noticing how impotent our 'leaders' really are. In only a very short time, they've managed to create a 'new world order', except it's not the one they were hoping for. Which is probably why Russia is prepared to play the long game. The longer the conflict drags on, the weaker the West looks.

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

We/I do not want to see bloody USSR and red cross in half Europe ever again. This is why who have brain supports Ukrain. I guess you are not there to suffer, so you don't care.

I don't want to see Ukraine's red & black flag in Europe ever again, and I suspect many who remember Poland or Romania's history don't either. I don't want to see the 2nd SS Panzer Division's insignia across Europe ever again, and yet we do. I don't want to see Himmler and Landig's Black Sun symbol either, and yet we do. Games Workshop's lawyers probably don't want to see Khorne's logo being used without a licence, but there must be blood for the blood god, and skulls for his throne. I don't want to see weapons that have been poured into Ukraine appearing in the hands of neo-nazi groups in Scandanavia, and yet we do.

I don't want to see a country that's being held up as a shining beacon of democracy against the darkness beyond the wall arresting or executing journalists, jailing opposition parties and leaders, and yet we do. It simplifies elections, if Zelensky will be the only candidate I guess, but it isn't exactly democratic. But then democracy isn't what it used to be. Recently in the US, New Mexico's governor suspended the Constitution because criminals use guns. Governors are supposed to defend the Constitution, not tear it up.

But you're right. I'm not there to suffer. You're wrong, and I do care. I cared about the civilians in and around Donbas being killed and maimed during Ukraine's civil war. I care about the civilians massacred during the Maidan uprising, who's deaths have never really been investigated, or the perpetrators prosecuted. I care about the people massacred in Odessa and burned alive. Ukraine doesn't, those weren't investigated or prosecuted either. I care about the Ukrainians being grabbed off the street, given a couple of days training, and then sent to the front. Many of those are from Ukraine's ethnic minorities. They are not Ukraine's 'Fortunate Sons'.

I also care about repeating the mistakes of the Afghan-Russia conflict. There, we trained and armed a bunch of proxies to fight against Russia there. They became Al Qaeda, ISIL, Taliban. We're doing the same in Ukraine, and our 'leaders' still don't care. As long as the conflic is constrained to dead Ukrainians and Russians, it's all good. If various factions start using the weapons and training we've given them for gang conflicts, political assassinations or armed robberies across Europe, maybe more people will start to care.

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

Is it possible ( by dredging or whatever ) to construct a deepwater port? If so, would that be cheaper than invading another country to nick a natural deepwater port?

Sure. It could be done pretty quickly as well-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare

But that had.. quite the environmental impact. But Russia's problem/issue is it really doesn't want a major NATO naval base right on it's doorstep. Maintaining the happy balance in the Black Sea has always been an issue, and obviously there are national security and economic concerns, if NATO could effectively deny Russia access to the Med and beyond.

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

If you don't think it's OK, then you get to berate the West for all of that crap, and I'll even cheer for you - but you can't coherently defend Russia's invasion, or the West supporting the defenders.

The problem is I think I can coherently defend Russia's actions. Again why I keep drawing comparisons with what we did to Yugoslavia. There, the pretext for invasion and massive bombing was 'to prevent ethnic cleansing' and 'genocide'. Russia used the same justification for it's SMO, and for much the same reasons. Ukraine has had a civil war since 2014, thousands of Ukrainians were killed and injured, millions were displaced. We used Minsk to cover Ukraine's build-up of forces that were preparing to recapture Donbas and Crimea, which would have resulted in more civilian deaths. So Russia intervened to prevent the ethnic cleansing, just as we did with Yugoslavia.

Then of course there's Syria. We interferred in that nation because Assad became one of the members of the 'Axis of Evil', is bad, and must be removed. Oh, and obstructing a pipeline route. We now occupy the main oil and agricultural regions of Syria because.. well, we can. Russia's there at the invitation of the Syrian goverment, we most certainly are not. We are illegally occupying a big chunk of another sovereign nation.

So two wrongs don't make a right, but it's rather hypocritical when our 'leaders' bleat that it's just NOT FAIR! when Putin & Russia do what we've been doing for decades. We took on the role of the world's cop, yet that role has become mired in corruption and self-interest.

...everyone gets their own opinion, we're not in Russia after all - just don't expect to convince anyone with that kind of "logic".

Not really. You can be arrested in the EU for being 'anti-Ukrainian'. You can be de-platformed. All those things that you'd expect in a fascist, authoritarian regime, but perhaps not in one that claims to value and respect free speech. You won't see this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeMXclQiNr0

On the Bbc, because although they used to report both sides of the conflict during Ukraine's civil war, now, they do not.. Even though they have a legal responsibility under their Charter to some form of neutrality. Or there's an article in the Economist praising Ukraines assassination efforts. Or, as I said before, many people with angry thumbs who have no clue about Ukraine's history, or why the resurgence of their Red & Black flag and 'Slava' slogan is bad news. That flag flew over this-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia

and the same greetings were exchanged by it's perpetrators. Many people are totally unaware of that brutal period of history and just assume it was all done by the Germans. I cannot support that ideology, even if the angry thumbs can and do. But our media glosses over the 'Never Again' happening again because, well, they're killing Russians, aren't they?

Re: So Musk has blood on his hands

Russia is already defeated. Ukraine is on the offensive, and has been for months. Russia is hiding behind minefields and barriers.

Indeed. If you zoom in on the maps from Nuland/Kagan's Institute for the Promotion of War, you'll see that after months of Ukraine's lightning offensive, they've gained a couple of kms around Robotyne. And they're almost up to Russia's first line of defence.

They've pushed their remaining brigades into this cauldron, and Russia's responded by redeploying 3 divisions to counter them. Victory is so close for Ukraine that they've lowered their fitness standards and are drafting more women.

Alternatively, Ukraine's failed to punch through, split the land bridge and isn't sitting on the beaches sipping cocktails. But Milley is retiring, so it's all good. There's a lot of scrap on the battlefield, a lot of dead and wounded Ukrainians, but that's all good because they aren't us and it's a small price for someone else to pay to defeat Russia. So now, because Russia is defeated, our glorious leaders are talking about a 'pause'. We're pretty much out of stuff to send them, and Russia is unlikely to agree to any pause, so Ukrainians are likely to continue to die for our leader's egos and vanity.

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

Not seen the TV series though. Getting off topic.

First series was good, second.. Got the Hollywood treatment and was terrible. Also recommend Peter F. Hamilton's "Fallen Dragon", which has some interesting takes on interstellar commerce.

Putin does need to bugger off back home but we need to drop this pretend bullshit that somehow we are defending some bastion of democracy and lawfulness. He should have been given the heave-ho in 2014 but Macron and co buggered that up. And lets not forget Obama and his constantly moving red lines.

This is the problem with proxy wars. Ukrainians are just the paws in a bigger game, and most Ukrainians and Russians aren't the "Fortunate Sons" that Creedence sang about. The worst aspect for me is the way the media did the 180 on Ukraine's domestic politics. Most of the downvotes I get are from people who have absolutely no idea of Ukraine's history, it's OUN, the history of it's red & black flag, it's "Slava" greeting, or why Banderas shouldn't really be regarded as a hero.

Or perhaps they do, and are happy to be part of that piece of history, and in which case I'll carry on treating them with the contempt they deserve. It suprises me Poland is so keen to support them, but then Poland probably knows the likely outcome is the restoration of it's borders and is just playing the long game.

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

If no-one can actually go back and check that the work was done how do we know that the money given by the US govt to companies such as Halliburton was actually used correctly and not just 'moved' elsewhere?

But this is why wars can be so very good for business. Richard Morgan wrote a good book about this called 'Market Forces', where finance execs encourage small wars for massive profits. Ukraine was already one of the world's most corrupt nations. I've known people who've done business there, and told me of things like being told to 'hire' a list of names and bank accounts for no-show jobs. One refused, and a small bomb went off in his office. It makes doing business in places like that interesting given you know it's bribery and corruption, but giving into it is often illegal in the West under our own anti-bribery laws.

But Ukraine's recently fired (or protected) some individuals under it's own anti-corruption laws. Reznikov was dismissed recently, with rumors of corruption swirling, but there have also been rumors he'll be appointed as Ambassador to London. His replacement, Umierov may have had something of a colorful career and has occupied positions where there could have been conflicts of interest. But it being what it is, these claims could just be propaganda. Biggest problem is money is being poured into Ukraine with little accountability.

Meanwhile, life for the ordinary Ukrainian is very tough-

https://twitter.com/DeanoBeano1/status/1699164390178635776

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

This is a straight, old school war of annexation by a country against another, in blatant violation of previously agreed borders. It's one of the simplest situations you can possibly have in international relationships.

So is the West's occupation of a large part of Syria. So was our invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Then there was our assistance in having Gaddafi murdered in Libya, leaving that country a shining beacon of democracy, peace and freedom. And then of course there was Yugoslavia. Emphasis on was because that country is no more. Again people really should compare NATO's justification for invadiing Yugoslavia to Russia's justification for the SMO. They're practically identical, and again this was deliberate by Russia to draw that comparison.

It's one of those leading by example things. If it's OK for us to invade or destabilise small defenceless countries, why do we get so upset when other countries do what we've been doing for the last few decades? And why do we blindly support a fratricidal conflict that's going to leave Ukraine in far, far worse shape than it would have been, if peace & diplomacy had been given a chance. But that's the problem with proxy wars. We can fight them to the last Ukrainian, then make billions from the reconstruction, redevelopment and asset stripping after the dust settles.

Re: The internet bill must have some in the mail

Starlink isn't a backbone provider, it's an ISP that plugs into the backbone so Elon gets a bill every month for the bandwidth that gets used. If he can't collect a monthly fee from users in Ukraine, he'll want to axe that service.

I don't think so. Costs in the grand scheme of things probably won't be that high. The space segments are 'free', the earth station capacity is part of the overall opex, and basic Internet transit capacity is probably only a tiny fraction of that. Starlink is a private company, so doesn't have to answer to public shareholders and it's only really answerable to the private ones and investors. But as a private company with fiduciary responsibilities, it should be up to it's board whether it donates services to the war effort, or not. Especially given the billions that are being thrown at defence companies, or Ukraine in general.

Bigger risk is PR and operations, ie having it's services used to kill people. Ukraine again isn't really helping when it complains about needing the service so it can blow stuff up. If it's being used as part of the war effort, then Starlink's satellites become a legitimate target for Russian ASATs. Russia could attack any satellites flying over Ukraine or Russia, and that would obviously create gaps in coverage further afield. Plus it might also create more legal complications under the Space Liability Convention, depending on where wreckage lands.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

Stop the whataboutery. Post-WW II borders are recognised by international treaties and there is at least one, of which Russia is a signatory which specifies that Crimea is part of Ukraine.

Prettty sure those Post-WW II borders included a country called Yugoslavia. Where is it now? But treaties can be torn up, borders redrawn as many have been since WW II.

Re: The report is not completely accurate

from the drone footage released by the Ukrainian side, it appears the drones do require starlink, unlike with stationary target, eg. a bridge, a warship is a small target (or 'small and moving') and you need live link to hit it.

Only if you don't know what you're doing. Much of the Black Sea Fleet has been moored inside the Sevastopol bastion and has been launching missiles without moving. This is one of the reasons NATO has really wanted to take over those bases because they're pretty easy to defend. Russia's also been launching missiles into Ukraine and Syria from much further away, but that's probably more to demonstrate capability given there's no way NATO warships could get into those waters.

Re: So Musk has NOW entered the Ukranian war.......

The borders of the former Ukraine SSR are what, in 1994, Russia pledged to respect and uphold. That was the price for them taking possession of the Soviet nuclear weapons previously stationed in Ukraine.

That was a nuclear treaty that didn't really promise anything, but the world wanted because it didn't want Ukraine having nuclear weapons. More relevant treaty was The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation signed in 1997, which amongst other things assured the autonomy of Crimea, and non-discrimination of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. The rest is still sadly becoming history.

I am still trying to figure out how a starlink signal would even REACH a submersible drone traveling underwater. It isn't as though 11 or 40 GHz have much penetration in water.

They weren't submersible drones. A couple got washed up, one detonated, one was recovered. The pics looked like kind of kayak-bombs. Later attacks showed the same type of drone. But recovering one would have given Russia some idea how they were controlled and how they might counter them. I'm also somewhat sceptical how integral Starlink would have been in these attacks, ie if there were terminals inside the drones or they were being used to control from onshore, or offshore vessels. I'm pretty sure guiding bombs with Starlink is against their AUP and ToS though.

Re: "If Ukraine wants to fight a war with Russia"

That was the whole point of the Minsk accords. the Donbas region has always thought of itself as somewhat independent, its sort-of Russia but not really Ukraine, so fitting it into a Federal structure of some sort would have solved the problem to everyone's satisfaction.

That was the problem. Crimea had autonomy, then that autonomy was removed. Ukraine had it's civil war due to historic ethnic divisions, Ukraine's armed forces lost badly and used Minsk as a pretext to train, re-arm and prepare to re-occupy the territories that it lost. Minsk was supposed to have been a cease-fire to allow dialog to allow peace talks and discussion around restoring autonomy or a more formalised federation, but this was a sham. There seems to be no real desire for peace now from Ukraine or the West, so the killing will continue until some version of democracy is restored. Meanwhile-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66750202

Ukrainian officials have said any Ukrainian citizens involved in organising the elections can expect to be punished in the future.

But then the idea of democracy is changing in the West as well. 'Interfere' with elections by asking questions and get thrown in jail.

Being neutral -- non-NATO -- would have made Russia happy and wouldn't have threatened Ukraine because there's no logic to Russia occupying the area as a hostile power (there's no upside to them actually occupying Ukraine).

Yep, we should have already known this having restored peace & stability to Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc.

Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Most miles are driven by people who drive lots of miles, and you can’t drive many miles on a 13A plug. My guess is if you want anything bigger than that at home, they will put it on a separate meter and tax it st a higher rate.

The UK already introduced a rule so that EV charges should be on a seperate meter, which then becomes an enabler for differential charging/taxing for 'fuel' vs normal domestic use. Which is one of the political challenges, ie 'supporting' EV usage without loading the costs onto everyone's electricity bills, which is extremely regressive.

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Again, this is backwards. We are far too slow, to build out the grid which is needed. This has been crystal clear since at least 2005, when it the trends showed that solar & wind would become cheaper marginal grid power sources within 5 years an some places, and 20 years in most places. Therefore they would begin to drive into the grid because of economics. It was clear by 2011 that EV's actually use about 1/3 the energy of fossil fuelled vehicles, and so in the long term would displace them (even if you had to burn coal to make the electricity)

Actually.. that's backwards, or just marketing BS from the 'renewables' lobby. The reality looks somewhat different-

https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind

minimum: 0.099 GW maximum: 0.954 GW average: 0.368 GW

Which are yesterday's 10-min averages. Then-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344

No new offshore wind project contracts have been bought by developers at a key government auction, dealing a blow to the UK's renewable power strategy.

...It was hoped offshore wind in the latest round could have helped generate five gigawatts of power, enough to run five million homes, but wind farm builders had warned for months that the government was not taking into account how much the costs of developing them had soared.

The UK currently has around 11GW of installed capacity, and yesterday (and much of the week) have been generating 2/10ths of f'all. Simple reason. The weather. A nice, high pressure 'heat dome' meaning virtually no wind across the UK, and much of Europe. The rest highlights the bs from the 'renewables' scumbags and their PR operations, which of course includes the dear'ol Bbc. If "the trends showed that solar & wind would become cheaper marginal grid power sources within 5 years an some places" were true, then there would have been no problem bidding in this round of CfDs.

Instead there's been something of a self-inflicted reality check. Last auctions there were some large wind projects that were awarded on low-ball bids. This allowed the 'renewables' scumbags to claim that wind was cheap. Since then of course the bidders on those projects have announced they may have to pull out because they can't actually afford to run at the prices they bid for. Same has been happening in the US, but the US regulators are being stricter on holding bidders to contracts, and penalties for breaking them.

The inflation claim is also bs. CfDs are indexed, which is one of the problems, ie the price of their electricty increases by the rate of food inflation. Or gas prices. Neither of which are an input cost for the subsdiy farmers. However, high energy costs are a major contributor to inflation, along with other 'Green' policies. So steel making uses a lot of energy, as does baking massive carbon fibre blades. Wage inflation is also energy driven, ie people need more money to pay for their over-inflated 'renewable' energy.

Then there's the impact on 'modernising' the grid to support these follies. Sure, let's waste billions on batteries, but batteries still need charging, and if there's no wind, that's not going to happen. They also can't perform grid stabilisation if they're flat, and grid stability has got a whole lot worse thanks to intermittent 'renewables'. And then to add insult to injury, Net Zero will roughly triple UK energy demand to support electrification of transport, heating, cooking etc. And fossil fuels are just far more efficient at that due to the fuels energy density.

So hopefully this is a wake-up call to restore sanity, ditch 'renewables' and get building nuclear... Although that may be optimistic given the intense lobbying from the 'renewables' scumbags, Greens and anti-nuclear and fossil fuel neo-luddites.