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mircea_popescu: captcha should probably be "name the last woman that gave you a fair lay"
mircea_popescu: kakobrekla> because you only need to prove you are smart once << win
mircea_popescu: this is how you know you're top dog, noobs come to abuse your open comments to spamvertise their shit.
mircea_popescu: for the benefit of "i can write a website too!" crowd : this is the result of removing about 14 different bias sources
mircea_popescu: i daresay this is the best 2,5mb random sample i ever did see
mircea_popescu: Monte Carlo value for Pi is 3.141602161 ; Serial correlation coefficient is 0.000435
mircea_popescu: so in the most recent rng tests for the cardano we now see Entropy = 7.999926 bits per byte.
mircea_popescu: (which is why the us army has been evolving towards smaller and smaller units as the quality of recruits sunk)
mircea_popescu: an army however is about the weakest not the strongest link
mircea_popescu: so it's not really practical, from a strategic perspective. nevertheless...
mircea_popescu: a trained man with a sword is a better asset in close quarters than dudes with guns
mircea_popescu: ic exactions to the increase of their private fortunes and made the tax indictions their opportunity for plunder?"
mircea_popescu: " So you find men passing over everywhere, now to the Goths, now to the Bagaudae, or whatever other barbarians have established their power anywhere ... We call those men rebels and utterly abandoned, whom we ourselves have forced into crime. For by what other causes were they made Bagaudae save by our unjust acts, the wicked decisions of the magistrates, the proscription and extortion of those who have turned the publ
mircea_popescu: "Although these men differ in customs and language from those with whom they have taken refuge, and are unaccustomed too, if I may say so, to the nauseous odor of the bodies and clothing of the barbarians, yet they prefer the strange life they find there to the injustice rife among the Romans."
mircea_popescu: ha, since i was going through old tomes, look what a gem i found :
mircea_popescu: the20year he has a point tho, in the sense of brass casingsd are reusable for a finite number of shots.
mircea_popescu: you can mix your own powder and make your own bullets just fine
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform ya well those people also have nil tactical utility-value.
mircea_popescu: i could make you one within the hour, and teach you to make one in a day
mircea_popescu: it's much easier to make a crossvbow than to print one
mircea_popescu: even if you get them to shoot safely, you're far far away from them shooting energetically enough to count
mircea_popescu: reality may be a complicated place, but the tactical utility of printed guns is still purely imaginary.
mircea_popescu: or helmet, who cannot hold at once his bow and shield; or from the ensigns whose bodies are naked, and who cannot at the same time carry a shield and the colors? The foot soldier finds the weight of a cuirass and even of a helmet intolerable. This is because he is so seldom exercised and rarely puts them on.
mircea_popescu: ts with the Goths were often overwhelmed with their showers of arrows. Nor was the necessity of obliging the infantry to resume their cuirasses and helmets discovered, notwithstanding such repeated defeats, which brought on the destruction of so many great cities. Troops, defenseless and exposed to all the weapons of the enemy, are more disposed to fly than fight. What can be expected from a foot-archer without cuirass
mircea_popescu: From the foundation of the city till the reign of the Emperor Gratian, the foot wore cuirasses and helmets. But negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began to think their armor too heavy, as they seldom put it on. They first requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and afterwards the helmet. In consequence of this, our troops in their engagemen
mircea_popescu: "while Mătăsăreanu's chest armor even successfully withstood a hit from a SWAT operator's AR-15"
mircea_popescu: <the20year> But who cares about pre-existing data? Everyone has to discover for themselves ,right? <<< qft.
mircea_popescu: people regularly take kj's to the head in most sports.
mircea_popescu: (which is the REAL reason for the move towards tasers, not the feigned desire to avoid casualties)
mircea_popescu: and the thing is, armor has surpassed this minimum. handheld firearms are not particularly useful these days
mircea_popescu: consequently, there's a limit to how heavy a round can be fired from the hand
mircea_popescu: the20year in fact, the kinetic energy of the bullet is roughly equal to the kinetic energy of the recoil.
mircea_popescu: bulletproof transparent rigid plastic was available before flexible stuff was.
mircea_popescu: benkay aromatic polyamide. like kevlar, but with aroma.
mircea_popescu: benkay amusingly, amlar is easier to print than a gun.
mircea_popescu: you need something very powerful to be able to do anything with it.
mircea_popescu: even if you maange to print a gun, you will print a useless gun.
mircea_popescu: yes well, the story is this : two robbers with body armor did more damage to the city policeman pension and health insurance funds than would have been the case if they just let them keep the stolen money.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform the reference was aramid. it withstood > 1k rounds from .38 and 9mm, as well as single action pump shotguns
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform see North Hollywood shootout etc. not that tricky.
mircea_popescu: notice that the serious bank robbers etc use very heavy assault weapons
mircea_popescu: you can get armor good enough to render any handheld firearm useless.
mircea_popescu: the problems only begin there. firearms are mostly an obsolete technology.
mircea_popescu: before, not likely. these people are not inovators, after all.
mircea_popescu: actually, i would wager a guess that the disk space of btc blockchain > disk space of all other altcoins combined
mircea_popescu: since we're doing spam, Hi My name is Anastasia. I am from Russia. It may surprise you, enjoy
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform i was gonna do that lol. much better. such meme now.