253700+ entries in 1.859s
mircea_popescu: ally,
a successful strike would deeply wound American prestige, especially if it went unanswered. Domestically, the deaths of six thousand crewmembers would generate almost unbearable political pressures for revenge. Our entries into WWII and the Global War on Terror were sparked by less.
mircea_popescu: Specifically, our bargaining chip against Beijing is to make things uncomfortably apocalyptic. The point is less what the carrier can do and more what an attack on it promises—full retaliation, and
a war that may quickly get out of hand. As ASPI analyst Harry White observed last month [11], “the idea is that anyone who attacks as valuable an asset as
a US carrier should expect
a significant response.” Internation
mircea_popescu: Like the US garrison in West Berlin, aircraft carriers are relatively defenseless, but they have
a separate function as
a highly visible warning about US resolve. Today,
a strategy of mobile “tripwires” is neither credible nor prudent, but it is worth studying because it may actually be implemented.
mircea_popescu: bounce in the end this isn't such
a very good argument.
bounce: explains it better than I could. if reduced at absurdum it's inevitably too expensive to ever fly well, and it very much looks like lockheed martin deliberately aimed for that because
a project that looks it'll succeed Real Soon Now but never really does is the ultimate goose with the golden eggs for the military industrial complex
mircea_popescu: as
a selling point it's perhaps innovative. surely beats ken slaughter's garage.
bounce: where's that piece reporting on the incoming chief de mission that dug
a bit and found fscktons of rot?
bounce: if I'd wanted to be mean I'd point out that the space shuttle looked spiffy enough but didn't do
a very good job of shuttling, n'mind at
a suitably low price tag. not that hard to argue it set humanity's progress toward colonising space back
a good score years or so.
Mats_cd03: jurov for some relative value of short, it doesnt go very far and i dont think you can carry much of
a payload either
ThickAsThieves: “And because we don’t know all the algorithms, because we don’t know the end factorial and all of the different ways they may interact, there are negative consequences that occur as
a result. That introduces
a market risk. That market risk has an unquantifiable cost. We saw it in one instance with the flash crash. We see it every day with little mini-flash crashes.”
ThickAsThieves: “The risk isn’t so much about the small investor,” Mr. Cuban said. “The risk is all these different high-frequency traders playing
a game with their algorithms, trying to trick each other, to get in front of each other to make that trade.
bounce: leadership isn't easy to come by, no. random democratic and/or republican countries haven't managed it in
a long time for the usual positions either
mircea_popescu: the usual problem is that there's no capable criminals to make
a guild in the first place, nothing else.
mircea_popescu: but in general, the crime guild does much better
a job of regulating crime than any other guild.
mircea_popescu: bounce it's
a balance point. the whole idea is that stable situations are stable, and derivation from that mean is unstable.
Mats_cd03: it has had its maiden flight...
a long time ago
bounce: f35 is
a brilliant scam, actually. getting permission to deliver production planes when the prototype hasn't had its maiden flight
Mats_cd03: e.g. one (two?) isnt
a fighter jet
mircea_popescu: bounce and wide availability and
a commodified market reduces the pull.
Mats_cd03: even if its basically
a laundry list of cool shit we want our super plane to have
bounce: likewise, getting robbed often enough is
a strong incentive to no longer run
a shop (or at least not here, or maybe not
a jeweller but
a gunsmith, who knows)
Mats_cd03: well no i think the project is cool and i dont have
a lot of problems with pouring R&D money into potentially useful technology
bounce: whether it's her girlish friends pulling her in or
a pimp looking for more meat to sell is
a different mechanism but with the same effect; question then is which'll be stronger
mircea_popescu: thinking the girl acts of her own volition is
a little rich.
bounce: dunno. "everyone's doing it, it's fun!" appears to be
a powerful motivator.
mircea_popescu: bounce take whores. if there's
a whore on every corner and prices are low, is your pretty daughter more likely or less likely to start cutting class for to taking it up the tail ?
the20year2: Which I have
a problem with, when programs like LCS and the F35 are front and center taking up significant sums of money for low results
the20year2: pLambert: yes, it's set to diminish by
a decent amount due to iraq, afghanistan and drawdowns
mircea_popescu: pLambert nop but he has
a point. it went down very little overall but it cut very badly.
the20year2: arms exports/imports is
a nice money maker
mircea_popescu: if some guy in my neighbourhood decided to go around telling everyone he's the bestest there is, i'd also expect him to send
a nubile young woman around for purposes with some frequency.
pLambert: and
a corrolary: why do we STILL have so many troops in Europe?
benkay: no options, no statement, thestringpuller. who cares, anyways? it's
a scam under investigation by the SEC. doomed, I tell you (to enjoy the new scion TC!)
mircea_popescu: that the us army at no point past ww2 had
a standing chance in europe.
benkay: your castle needs
a supply chain
mircea_popescu: but it's fucking ridiculous that i have to maintain
a private supply network in fucking 2014
mircea_popescu: (they recently had
a case about how illegal all this is)
mircea_popescu: try and make
a farm selling milk at cost +15% in say california.
mircea_popescu: the20year2 that data is corrupted, and milk is
a fine example.
mircea_popescu: but this recent "can't eat an apple with
a spot" neurosis is not naturally occuring in human populations.
mircea_popescu: the20year2 moreover, that's phase 2 material. obviously the supermarket can train the clueless consumer in
a number of ways to build
a moat around itself.
mircea_popescu: more complicated than that. the groupon business model was basically to try and create
a scale advantage on both ends.
benkay: this in fact is how we run our shop. we sit down, figure out what crazy ideas you have, how to make them into an actual thing, and then work on it at
a predetermined rate for
a period of time.
benkay: this is very similar to the constant ongoing mining fiasco and how product tends to get delivered (in my extremely limited experience): "you ship
a thing. it shows up on my door. if it works, 30 days later i send you
a check. otherwise, get out of my face."
benkay: another thing is, as i said to my colleague recently re
a contractor: "ain't nobody motivated by money in the bank."
benkay: i want to ship
a shitload of features! it's going to cost 500B.
ozbot: Looks like Darkwallet was
a scam [x-post TheHub] : Bitcoin
Mats_cd03: i'll take
a copy of the zip if you'd upload it
kanzure: well they have rate limits on amount of bitcoin they can send at
a time on coinbase because of how they claim their cold storage system works
Mats_cd03: the next thing that poster is going to say in
a week is, the password reset form doesnt have
a rate limit either and oops,
a quarter of the accounts have been looted cause an attacker bruteforced the idiots
Mats_cd03: attacking
a form without
a rate limit... how has coinbase gone this long with this problem?
kanzure: mircea_popescu: because they have trouble discriminating between good bitcoin ideas and poor bitcoin ideas ("hand over bitcoins to
a third-party")
kanzure: mircea_popescu: i mean they are
a target for phishing if they also signed up for coinbase
mircea_popescu: "you claim to be
a human being, but you are actually subhuman, because look :"
mircea_popescu:
a generally available index of "idiots involved in Bitcoin" is
a good thing.
novusordo: i'm having
a hard time understanding what 'username' and 'pass' I'm supposed to supply the mpex socket with...
ThickAsThieves: "Cuomo Gives Tesla (TSLA)
A New York Direct-Sell Pass"
novusordo: [KS]: i've seen that, I have my own script I wrote before that came around that sends me
a text message when he posts
mircea_popescu: "Software makers led by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT:US) say overly strict limits would reduce incentives to develop cutting-edge programs that detect when
a car airbag should deploy or let people alter photographs."
mircea_popescu: i don't recall the last time someone gathered the guts to try and play
a trick on me,
mircea_popescu: " Limbaugh is among the highest paid people in U.S. media, signing
a contract in 2008 for $400 million through 2016.["
mircea_popescu: which, from all the reviews i've read so far, is really very bad and useless pr doing me
a huge disservice.
mircea_popescu: funny, they don't want to splurge 30 on
a mpex reg, but they do want to spend 35 on the mpoe-pr.
mircea_popescu: tho perhaps i should say him. that thread's basically reduced to one guy spazzing out and
a bunch of people milking him for lulz.
pLambert: anybody want to guess odds that NEOBEE produces
a financial statement within the next week?
dexX7: bc.i seems to be broken again..
a wallet with negative balance
mircea_popescu: all business plans are
a delineation of something which may or may not be worth finding out if it woirks.
chetty: ThickAsThieves, helps
a lot if you have person to bounce ideas around with
mircea_popescu: (the difference is the same as between the rules of static forces on one hand and the facade of
a house on the other)
mircea_popescu: or it can be
a structured process. most industry and
a good chunk of science, plus engineering (which includes good reporting and good police investigative work) is structured by this principle.