Since the area contains heads of state (enough to measure in tons) among them the wannabe god-emperor of America, yes, it will be a parade of the latest antidrone tech. :)

Also, everyone near airfields will be scanning for anti-aircraft installations in the shrubbery. The usual stuff.

It’s not a big number, but only 300 such drones exist, to my knowledge.

I wonder, hypothetically, if ICE could continue to effectively do its job under mild conditions of area denial and defense in depth… e.g. if their vehicles, wherever they are found, would run a high chance of getting blocked in by careless people parking other vehicles in unfathomable ways, while some percentage of vehicles found in more private locations experience an increased risk of vandalism…

It seems he lost his mind, before losing his body too. :(

It’s widely known. Attained education correlates with preference for left-wing policies, and in the US case, with opposition to Trump.

a sample from Newsweek’s “Trump approval tracker”

Many of the people responding to the poll may not have ever encountered the claims they were asked about.

However, they do offer a “not sure” option, which can be taken if a person knows they’re not informed.

Gullibility appears to cut across party lines, with respondents identifying as Democrats just as likely as Republicans to believe at least one of the 10 false claims.

Republicans were, though, more likely to believe Russian disinformation claims than their Democratic counterparts, with 57.6% falling for at least one Russian disinformation claim, compared with just 17.9% of Democrats and 29.5% of people who didn’t identify with one particular party.

I looked at the 10 false claims used for the test. Most of them were ridiculously easy to dismiss as false. The only one I had difficulty with was identifying whether social security cuts were part of “Project 2025” agenda, due to the agenda being very extensive (the source says 922 pages) and me not living in a country that it’s about. Thus I’d have answered “not sure”. I’d have also answered “not sure” about the birth place of some terrorist.

If people stumble on these, people are really poorly informed or unable / unwilling to inform themselves.

Some guesses.

• the US media environment is very entertainment-focused?

• the US education system leaves things to be desired?

• the US population spends a high amount of time in social media echo chambers?

• do Republicans spend more of online time in bot-infested places?

• do they have lower bot recognition and fact checking skills?

• are they drinking the kool-aid because their great leader drank it, so it seems legit?

In general, propaganda works. That’s why people pay for it. When you have a delicate equilibrium and you can push it past the tipping point with little effort, that’s the most economical way of disabling an opponent. :( Using force would require a spending a trillion, but using disinformation, you can get outcomes with a tiny amount.

Russia is spending significant amounts on promulgating misinformation in the U.S. Last year, for example, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two people for funneling nearly $10 million through a Tennessee-based content creation company to publish misinformation about Ukraine.

According to labels, I’m using plain ordinary G.652.D with a 25 mm bending radius. Maybe I got lucky with the pencil experiment. :)

I know the “bend insensitive” versions exist, but when the cheaper alternative worked, there seemed to be no need.

What kind of comms do the wires allow?

In case of FPV drones, anything up to and including gigabit TCP/IP.

It’s neither, they’re spare wire reels for older tow missiles which were wired for the same reason.

Nope, it’s all telecom fiber. TOW uses copper to my knowledge (never seen one, not fully certain). Droners use telecom grade single mode fiber (fused silica, 125 micrometer diameter, acrylic coated).

I build some (they aren’t in Ukrainian hands yet, but will be - if they want them, because they’re advancing super fast and could be many steps ahead). There is no “might”, they work.

10 kilometers of fiber weighs 1.5 kg, less if you buy fancier kinds of fiber. A drone with 10-inch props lifts this without problems. You can bend the fiber around a pencil and only experience degraded signal. Only a 90-degree bend will make it snap. In the war zone, landscapes after some battles already resemble “attack of the spiders” movies.

In peace time, the challenge is finding a farmer who allows using their field to test this. Promising to reel everything in and pay for damaged crops goes a long way, though. But sea is an even better idea - easier to reel it back.

P.S.

I am quite grateful to an Ukrainian radio amateur, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov. He published info about the early Russian models that were found crashed, and made a big deal about it, as one should. People listened to him and took him seriously, and started developing them ASAP.

From the article:

“De jure” U.S. recognition of Russian control in Crimea.

That would contravene the Budapest memorandum, in which other signatories (including the US) promise to “Respect the signatory’s independence and sovereignty in the existing borders”. Most likely, the president of Ukraine cannot simply sign this, but is required by constitution to hold a referendum. Which is not possible in war time. So to my understnading, this point sabotages the rest entirely. Ukraine cannot sign and ratify this, and consequently won’t.

“De-facto recognition” of the Russia’s occupation of nearly all of Luhansk oblast and the occupied portions of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

That would be merely untenable for Ukraine.

The lifting of sanctions imposed since 2014. / Enhanced economic cooperation with the U.S., particularly in the energy and industrial sectors.

That would be active cooperation with the agressor.

I’m not sure if my crystal ball is cheap glass or a real palantir, but I see this proposal in the paper bin. I see the US overstepping promises made in better times. As a consequence, I also see certain European countries give zero damns about which weapons systems contain US components, and give those systems to Ukraine while they re-arm themselves with locally made items.

If you think of the fill percentage, I think that’s too optimistic, since they’re in a war. There is constant demand. However, even 50% would be an extremely big amount, and relieve Ukrainians from a lot of pressure (last year, when a similar thing happened in Toropets, it had effects on the front within weeks). This time, from the videos I saw, there was enough to keep detonating for a long time.

Whatever the fill percentage and loss percentage, the site is closed for a long time - if something remains, it cannot be reached, it has to be examined and re-certified. But more likely, very little will remain.

In the coming days, satellite photos will tell what the situation is.

Competent ones, I think they do.

Possible explanations:

• yet another time, someone had set money aside for personal use, consequently the bunkers had doors made of plywood or roofing tin :)

• arrival of drones was timed to match the loading / unloading of an ammunition train (that’s when even competent militaries have to bring their stuff out)

I hope her lawyer is skilled and the court responsive to arguments - and she gets her freedom back.

If I was her, one of my first actions would be starting to teach a colleague to replace me, while asking colleagues abroad about open jobs in research (followed by questions about legislation, immigration and civil rights).

Basically, I would not stay in a country whose officials wronged me for no reason, and might do that again.

Is that an accurate representation of what his tattoos mean? I have no idea, I’m not an expert on gang symbology.

I’m not an expert either, but I’m from another country. Does the gang speak English? If it’s an Ecuadorian gang, why would they use English abbreviations in their symbol language? It seems natural for them to use Spanish. :)

When I date people, I don’t allow myself to go forward without completing a mutual background check. I ask questions and talk about politics, tell about situations I’ve encountered and listen attentively.

I want to know about the other person’s world views, decision-making and problem-solving methods - and to inform them about my own. I want to know how they tell apart truth from a lie, what they think about state and centralization, wealth and poverty, science and religion, civil rights and minorities - and to inform them about what I think, so they could make informed decisions.

Ironically, I don’t wish to know what party they vote for - because the selection is shitty and I laugh about my own past choices. :)

Recalling situations where world views mismatched - I’ve had to part ways with one person because she was too spiritual. Two people subscribed to odd conspiracy theories. One person’s goals in life warned me about excessive self-interest and lack of care about others.

P.S.

Trying to switch perspective and step into the shoes of a woman, I think it can be a warning sign if the other person gives excessive gifts or feels “obligated to take care” - one should inquire about the reason. I would also be wary of people who eagerly accept me as the new centerpoint of their life - it might indicate an obsessive tendency and severe symptoms if the relation should break. If the other person exhibited jealousy about friends or controlling behaviour, that would be a definite warning sign to me.

P.P.S.

As for social media, yes, it can corrupt people’s perception of reality. How to pull them out of the bog, no idea. As for how to avoid them getting there: no algorithmically steered social media.

Anyone’s hand, presented by the man whose first column in the “customs tariff table” was a ridiculous lie made up of cooked numbers (trade deficit instead of tariff rate).

There’s no reason to put a grain of trust in him.

The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said.

A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said.

People in one forum speculated about Trump’s “Golden dome” fantasy a few months ago. I did a calculation on the back of a napkin. My result: not 1000 or 200, but about 9000 interceptor vehicles are required for good coverage. Very lucrative contract, very impractical system - they’ll drive the US bankrupt doing this.

And what will a nuclear-armed adversary do? At first, they might do an atmospheric nuclear detonation high over their own country - to get a little privacy. After that, a small number of missiles will launch on flight paths not leading to the target - to create gaps in the sensor and interceptor network by detonating near them in space. Maybe a few minutes later, the main attack will follow. When approaching the target area, the vanguard of the main attack will detonate in atmosphere to ionize air (turn it opaque to radar). Nuclear weapons do not need sensors to navigate or communicate, they use inertial navigation and remain silent. Interceptors need to see and communicate, which can be denied with nuclear weapons.

End result: an advanced attacker will have to spend about 10 minutes to penetrate this defense. It only buys more time to launch a nuclear counter-attack (which could be launched anyway, based on mere observation and early warning).

Satellites are bound by their orbits to spend a lot of time in useless places from the viewpoint of defending a location. This kind of a system makes the defending side over-invest in infrastructure, which is not economical.

Short answer: if they got it bad, they’re dead or in a nursing home. That’s why they aren’t walking in a mall. They ran out of health.

Long answer: in recent times, there seems to be lower threshold of diagnosis.

But if he truly thinks he can pinpoint exposures that increase autism - things like the exposure to tetraethyl lead which probably increased criminality and decreased mental health - good luck for combing scientific studies. There may be some. But if he’s gonna rewind the age old “vaccines cause” record and replay it, nah, I won’t be listening.