The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
The recipients wouldn't be happy if nude pictures of me were being widely disseminated. Ugly privilege!
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
There is no way the Venezuelans are going to vote to give their oil to American companies.
Of course not. They're going to vote to SELL their oil to American companies. Because the choice will be between doing so and not selling much oil at all; they no longer have the domestic expertise and the US isn't going to let anyone else in.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
You've got the model wrong. Even if this literally went against things Trump promised (and I don't think it does), as @sun_the_second says, it's losing that's the real problem for most of his supporters, not war. It'll tick off the pro-Russia contingent, but most of his supporters will be in favor so long as it looks like winning, and he'll probably increase support from the remnants of the neocons.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
As far as a night of bombing and snatching a foreign head of state? It's cool if you get away with it.
Yep. It's risky as hell because you can get dragged into a general invasion and contested occupation that way, but Trump is no stranger to risk.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
An anti-American communist being admired by NPR is a day ending in a Y. It doesn't really mean anything.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Grenada was even more successful than Panama. Wikipedia has it lasting 8 days, and the day of the invasion is now Thanksgiving for the Grenadians, so a cultural win as well. I'm not clear on whether the Venezuelan operation is completely over yet, so it may be too soon to put it in the record books.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Bin Laden's youngest wife was turned over to the Pakistanis during or after the raid; she was the only one there.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
It's possible they were importing weapons or something (which would explain the timing), but Venezuela needs naphtha to process their heavy oil, and that's what Skipper was supposedly carrying.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
El Salvador seems more likely. I'm sure Bukele would love to have him in CECOT.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Yep, I disagree with doing this (because it shouldn't be the USs business, not because Maduro didn't have it coming), but it seems like we at least did it right. Hard to believe we basically Grenada'd Venezuela. Even better than Panama, no siege.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
The US obviously does not now and never has believed regime change is per se bad.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Looking at the thread @CertainlyWorse pointed to, I think if there's anything aside from Marco Rubio's personal interest and Trump's desire for a Nobel Peace Prize, @UberZarathustra has it -- reduce China's influence in the Western hemisphere.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
As someone who has been at least a bit involved in the space since before DJI made drones good Christmas gifts, I feel for the RC plane community that has had to work hard to carve out their legal niche.
Don't be; they were happy to try to throw everyone else who wanted to fly (helis, multirotors, small stabilized planes, first-person-view flight, jets, even giant-scale gliders) if only the FAA would let their clubs have a monopoly on flying WWII-style models in a circle. The FAA didn't buy it. Now they're looking to see if the FCC will give their clubs some sort of special exception to the new rules; they won't get that either.
On the topic of brushless motors, they're pretty high frequency drivers, but I don't think could work practically (OTOH it'd be "near field", which is well out of my wheelhouse).
They're only running at 16-24kHz, usually. You're not going to disrupt that remotely.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
These things CAN be produced domestically, but it can't be done economically, so there won't be large numbers of hobbyists any more. It is also likely the DHS and DoD expect to be able to lean on any domestic manufacturers to refuse to produce these, or to nerf them in some way.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
I haven't looked into this but, uh, define "drone components". I used to be a hobbyist quadrotor pilot and assembled my own quadrotors from off the shelf parts and kits. I simply do not see how the government could possibly prevent me from doing that with the authority it has.
UAS Critical Components: For the purpose of this determination, the term “UAS critical components” includes but is not limited to the following UAS components and any associated software:
- Data transmission devices
- Communications systems
- Flight controllers
- Ground control stations and UAS controllers
- Navigation systems
- Sensors and Cameras
- Batteries and Battery Management Systems
- Motors
Whether it includes all these if they aren't claimed to be part of a UAS is yet to be seen. But it would be hard to claim flight controllers or ground control stations aren't. A car controller isn't very useful for an aircraft.
The FCC has authority over anything that emits radio waves, but in order to use the FCC to ban drones you would need to ban, essentially, all RC vehicle controllers (totally eliminating the entire RC car, aircraft, and quadrotor hobbies) and wireless video transmitters (eliminating every single thing where people want to watch a camera on a screen without wires).
Yes, and I expect eliminating the RC aircraft hobby is intentional; like I said, they want to reduce the amount of possibly-innocent flying objects.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
A state pension means that the government is taking from taxpayers and paying the old.
A "pension" in the US is deferred compensation, generally the term implies a defined benefits plan. Once you've been employed for the requisite period, the employer (whether public or private) is obliged to make the payments when you get old. At a cash accounting level this is the same as taking from the taxpayers and paying the old, but it's a matter of paying a debt owed, not a subsidy.
This is complicated by the way some of the public pensions were attained -- union delivers votes to politicians in exchange for pension benefits -- which taints the process, but barring things like that, a pension is an obligation owed the former employee.
In most other Anglophone countries what the US calls "social security" is called a "pension".
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
We're very bad at dealing with repeated objectively horrible decision making at the individual level.
There's a mechanism that's good at that; call it the "invisible iron fist". But we do our best to prevent it from operating.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Geofencing is practical with participating manufacturers and users; you could use it to keep every fool who just got back from Best Buy with a new drone from flying it over the nearby airport, military base, whatever. It doesn't do anything against intentional bad actors, because the geofencing can be removed (as it often was when DJI was doing it) or if they manage to lock that down completely the flight controller completely replaced with one you can run open-source software on (as many do). And there is even a flight controller which can accept open source software which is (allegedly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's fraud) made in the US, so the recent ban wouldn't even make bad actors smuggle.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002)
They basically just re-passed the same law struck down here, and have been avoiding scrutiny by only charging people who were already incentivized to plea bargain. Apparently the idea is that if the law is around for a long time before it gets seriously challenged again (in a virtual child porn case not involving anything else), the courts will forget all about Ashcroft and convict. Might work.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Hence the scare quotes around "solved". Though I think they actually have thought of that; they are trying to reduce the attack surface and make the bad actors more visible by eliminating the majority of the innocent actors with the same technology. That way they know anyone with a drone (who isn't on their good-boy list) is bad.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
· Edited 2d ago
People aren't getting most of their premiums back. The healthcare system is getting most of the premiums rather than the insurance system, and it's not showing up as profit, but rather being paid to support the health care bureaucracy.
ETA: And sometimes the same entity is on both sides of the transaction, as @yunyun333 points out.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
If I’m an American citizen (only) and want to become a diplomat or a military submarine captain or a central banker, I pretty much have to work for the government. Making it so that if you want to be a doctor, you (mostly) have to work for the government is no different.
Yes, if you want to become a diplomat (in a non-shithole country, anyway) it's good to have contributed a lot to the party in power. Like I said, corruption. Not sure how that's responsive to my issue, which is that your "negotiation" will consist of politicians negotiating doctor's reps with other people's money.
The politicians in single payer systems often stand up against paying doctors more because they know that if they do they have to pay all public sector workers more
They actually don't have to pay all public sector workers more. But if they did... eh, it's not their money.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
The Trump Administration has "solved" the drone problem another way. They've abused an FCC regulation and banned all new model drones and drone components that aren't made in the US. Since there are currently no domestic civilian drones, nor as far as I know transmitters or receivers or motors, this "solves" the problem. US-manufactured drones with a fully US supply chain will be cost-prohibitive for anyone who isn't using them to replace a helicopter. And domestic companies can be leaned on by the DoD and DHS to track their customers and keep quantities limited.
In the future, a little child I know will have no idea what’s behind the smirk when I snatch their little drone out of the air, or why I insist on putting a jolly roger sticker onto it.
In the future, the little child won't have a drone. As for the jolly roger sticker, I thought about buying some to put on my model helicopters where the FAA ID should go, but I didn't bother.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
I think you mean to say that cities are fertility shredders.
They're called IQ shredders (by those who do) because the smart people move to the city and don't reproduce there, thus providing selection against IQ on a population basis.
This ban was because we imported a lot of shitty Chinese drywall that later outgassed sulfur compounds. It wasn't pre-emptive, it was punitive.
This is different from the UAS ban for several reasons including
UAS that do bad stuff on their own or at the surreptitious direction of their foreign manufacturer are largely only theoretical. DJI has been accused of uploading flight logs during an update, but that's it.
It applies to components, too, including components such as motors and batteries that could not be compromised to do the bad stuff theorized.
The reason for the UAS import ban is to prevent Americans from doing bad things with a UAS on purpose, not for any damage done by the manufacturer or manufacturer's country.
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