dingaling

Annual executions per capita, 2024 and 2025, excluding the Iranian protests:

USA: 1 in 12 million; 1 in 8.6 million

Iran: 1 in 97,000; 1 in 62,000

I'm not sure why you think that when even the US President was tweeting about it

There's a difference between quantifiable but unmanageable situational risk and predictable, manageable technical risk.

The heatshield issue is the latter.

$100 billion has been spent on this project. Ablative heatshield coatings have been used since the Atlas ICBM in 1957. Yet they still flew Artemis with significant technical risk on a political grandstanding mission that delivered no significant science.

1 hour 29 minutes seems excessive to extract the astronauts; if any of them _did_ have a medical issue they'd be in for a long wait.

The commentary said that the initial problems with the boats approaching Integrity was due to an unexpected swell. Unexpected, in the Pacific?

Edit: all of the Apollo missions, except 8, had their stabilization collars inflated in under 20 minutes. With Integrity today it took nearly an hour more.

Artemis rides on extended versions of the same SRBs that made the Shuttle ascent so dangerous.

I've raised concerns about the Signal project whitewashing risks such as keyboard apps or the OS itself, and the usual response is that it's my fault for using an untrustworthy OS and outside Signal's scope.

At some point there need to be a frank admission that ETE encrypted messaging apps are just the top layer of an opaque stack that could easily be operating against you.

They've made encryption so slick and routine that they've opened a whole new vector of attack through excessive user trust and laziness.

Encrypting a message used to be slow, laborious and cumbersome; which meant that there was a reticence to send messages that didn't need to be sent, and therefore to minimise disclosure. Nowadays everything is sent, under an umbrella of misplaced trust.

Sadly, libraries in UK towns have very little shelf space left and what's on them is usually mass-market fiction, biography or very old non-fiction.

Honestly isn't worth the effort to visit my local one, unless I want to join a crochet club or do 'mindfulness' jigsaws.

The Ineos Grenadier 4x4 has a 'toot' function for cyclists, largely because Ineos is a sponsor of a cycling team.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PbGp24MIRDQ

It's difficult to decoy because the missile's processor is programmed to know what typical aircraft profiles look like; for example a transport aircraft has two or four propellors with hot leading edges, numerous turbine exhausts and warm leading edges. A flare is a seen as a hot ball, in contrast.

To decoy that, the decoy needs to basically _be_ the aircraft.

Iran enriched over 450kg of uranium to at least 60%.

There's no need for anything over 5% for powerplant use. They were preparing HEU for weapons; whether those weapons were to be built now or in 20 years is irrelevant.

Probably a risk worth taking; defending a pipeline is much easier than escorting huge, slow-moving ships through a 24km-wide Strait laced with mines and peppered by artillery and missiles.

I can't blame them. We've been force-upgraded to Windows 11 at work and that OS and its apps do their upmost to obscure where files are located.

I've frequently saved on OneDrive instead of locally, by accident, and then been perplexed when I try to reopen the file later.

And I've been using filesystems for 35+ years, so I feel sympathy for those who don't understand the abstraction. At this point Android is more transparent about its files.

But how many Moonshots could we have got out of $100 billion of vegetarian non-pork?

Everything about SLS, and most of Artemis, has been dictated by Congress, often overriding expert advice.

Why not just give NASA the money and let them get on with it?

The same happens with the US military, Congress constantly deleting funding for programs they don't like to fund ones they do.

It's exactly what it is

How do you think data is created? It's lots of anecdotes, normalised.

But Usenet style didn't have a trendy name, an 'inventor' or Github stars. So it didn't exist.

I disagree, I work with a bunch of Gen Zs who live in TikTok and talk in meme-slang, and several of them stayed up late to watch the launch.

They're not anyway interested in spaceflight but they still got the news

Everyday Astronaut's coverage

This program has cost nearly $100 billion to date. Yesterday's launch alone accounted for $4.1 billion in direct costs.

Saying "it was either this or that" doesn't make sense at these magnitudes. They could have hired a professional aerospace filming team for a ridiculously overpriced $10 million and it would be an _actual_ rounding error.

I wish we'd known this before the launch

Both myself and my 12yo were disappointed by the NASA feed, it was more like the matter-of-fact coverage of 'routine' Shuttle launches of the 1980s than something worthy of this historic mission.

There is no technological innovation in the Artemis stack.

Three of the main engines are refurbished Shuttle engines. The fourth is a clone that cost more than the entire SpaceX Starship stack.

The boosters are derived from the Shuttle SRBs.

It's a late-60s technology rocket stack with a 2000s-era flight computer.

It's such a travesty.

Adding 70+ strike and AEW aircraft apiece, individually more than most national air forces could muster.

Amd for the diner, new cars are much less nutritious due to the regulation. They're like some sort of bland protein-shake lunch.

> You’d have to devise some sort of fire proof mini airlock

Maritime patrol aircraft like the P-8 already have such a system, for releasing sonobuoys and float-flares while at altitude.

So it's not a technical issue, more one of regulation and maintenance.

Its ubiquity disappoints me because it shows how post-modernist emotionalism has completely overriden objective pragmatism.

The average better in the street is not going to magnitudes less statistical information than the betting company, but he places a bet because he 'feels' that he can predict the outcome.

30 years ago they'd all have been staring at TVs in their respective rooms.

50 years ago they'd be reading their own newspapers and magazines.

The name changes but the song remains the same; people have their own interests, even within a family, that aren't shared with others. I wouldn't bore my partner by monologuing about my hobbies, and she likewise. At least we're in the same room together.

"That would be catastrophic to Israel: they could face Iran from the air and Arab ground forces from multiple directions. "

Israel has little to fear from Iran in the air, the IRIAF has been destroyed and ballistic missile launches have tapered off.

In terms of Arab ground armies, only Egypt and Saudi pose much of a threat; the others are small, unintegrated and inexperienced and rely heavily on Western contractor support.

And if Israel, which has the most combat experienced air force in the World, somehow did struggle to defend against those forces, they always have the Samson Option of nuclear-tipped missiles from silos and submarines.

You are very fortunate. When I took a career break to become daddy-day-care for our child I went to "Parents & Toddlers" groups and found them unwelcoming and suspicious.

Going back to work was a relief, because I was able to actually talk to adults without feeling that they were judging my reasons for being there.

> It's OK to ask them how they're going

The point of enlightenment is when you realise they never ask you that.

Sea Viper can defend against short / medium-range BMs impacting in its vicinity, not IRBMs passing overhead in mid-course to a distant target.

There's no need for Marines to sink tankers, an SSN in the Gulf of Oman would do that neatly and deniably.

"You mean to tell me you've lost another tanker? Crazy. Anyway, about this intelligence you're sending Iran..."

Most likely the Marines are heading for Kharg Island.