Of course, that only brings us to, "It's easy to claim others are offering their lives for your goals."

I guess it's probably best to just realize everything you see on the subject of any given war is probably propaganda. And judge the value of it through that lens.

It doesn’t matter anymore in any case as Israel just launched a massive barrage. So there will be no ceasefire now anyway.

Via BBC:

-Complete cessation of the war on Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen

-Complete and permanent cessation of the war on Iran with no time limit

-Ending all conflicts in the region in their entirety

-Reopening the Strait of Hormuz

-Establishing a protocol and conditions to ensure freedom and security of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz

-Full payment of compensation for reconstruction costs to Iran (via reparations in the form of USD2 Million per ship Hormuz fee to be shared with Oman[?] for some reason? Again, I don't understand why anyone is paying anything to anyone else?)

-Full commitment to lifting sanctions on Iran

-Release of Iranian funds and frozen assets held by the United States (Also to be used as reparations to Iran. Again, why?)

-Iran fully commits to not seeking possession of any nuclear weapons (More on this below. And it's a doozy.)

-Immediate ceasefire takes effect on all fronts immediately upon approval of the above conditions

------------

OK. Now that is the english language version. The Farsi version, which is not being reported in the media, contains the following language as well: "acceptance of enrichment". (Which again, to me, seems like it would be a non-starter.) The idea being that enrichment is a dual use technology I assume?

The full version isn't being reported in English language media, but the Administration has it. When asked about what's in the plan, the White House will only confirm that "yes", it is 15 points and not just the 10 we know about. So that answer at least confirms there are additional points. Which, again, even if there weren't added points, the 10 we know about mean that everyone still pays Iran for passage through the straits.

I'm gonna be honest here, this seems totally unworkable. I'll even go further, and characterize this as Iran giving us a list of conditions for our surrender. This is not acceptable. This is materially worse than the status quo that existed 2 months ago.

Jeez. Just do nothing!

Doing nothing would have been better than this.

Why would I want to be paying them if you're, at the same time, telling me they don't have the muscle to make me pay?

Why is anyone paying Iran anything if we won? Someone's gonna need to explain that to me.

Can you elaborate on how, exactly, ships would be able to evade the toll booth, if they have to pay the toll in any case?

Because on the surface of it, it sounds to me like Iran is tolling the straits. Which is fine. The fee is small enough that I'm not opposed to paying it given the alternative. I understand why the world is willing to pay. Ok. I get it.

But it's hard for me to view this as a win for us. So I'm probably missing something? (Or at least, I hope I'm missing something.)

What about power banks from India? Vietnam? Malaysia? Korea?

That's what I'm saying. If there are nations where you can get away with it, then those power banks can end up in Western, African or South American markets.

(I'm counting getting a fine, or paying a bribe, as getting away with it. I don't really consider those punishments that will provide sufficient deterrent.)

What about the rest of us?

That kind of fraud is oftentimes only a fine in many other nations.

The belief of business users that this will remain true is grounded more in hope than in cold, dispassionate, business based decision making.

If it's not life or death, encrypt every byte of data you send to the cloud.

If it is life or death, you should probably not be letting that data traverse the open internet in any form.

I think sometimes people watch hollywood movies and get the impression that it represents a kind of cataloging of our military capabilities. A demonstration of what we can do to our enemies. With the underlying subtext being "don't mess with us."

I just want to gently suggest that not everything we see in movies is factual with respect to military or intelligence capabilities.

I'm an old timer. I got off the bus at Quantico in 1991. But even though I'm not in right now, I'd feel confident in betting that we don't have the capacity to surveil that many targets via satellite for, say, 1 week, prior to our attack.

(Of course, when I got off the bus at Quantico in '91 I also would have been just as confident in betting that the US would never engage in a first strike. So what do I know?)

That’s only making European entrepreneurs salivate at all of that sweet EU funding they can suck up to replicate PLTR in service of their sovereignty initiatives.

No one is invading China. Coupled or de-coupled is a completely irrelevant consideration. People think MAGA are crazy, but no one is suicidal. A war with China would be over in a matter of hours. And anyone who did not manage to get to Africa or extreme South America before the outbreak of hostilities would have a great chance of dying. The only question is will death be quick in a blast, or slow as you try to walk out of the US.

How do you change developer and user habits though? It's not as easy as people think.

Which is exactly the practice that needs to stop.

You and I both know there are far more than 8 ATC controllers that work LGA. Please don't try to assert that there was no way to even have a relief available. (As appears to be the case in this instance.)

Whatever caused the lack of availability that night needs to be urgently addressed. Please don't try to tell me we would have needed to train more ATC controllers to provide even a single relief at that tower last night. We both know how many ATC work LGA so we both know that's not true.

But now that I know that you know a bit about ATC. Let's drop the pretense.

We're both fully aware that there are right around 1250 ATC controllers in New York state. I further suspect that both of us know exactly how many work LGA. So there's no need to speak in generalities any longer.

It's time to get serious about determining what happened in this instance. It appears, from the initial available information, that there was not even a relief on site.

That practice needs to stop, and please don't try to tell me we don't have the available staff to bring it to an end. You and I both know that's horse manure.

No you're not.

In the state of New York, the most it could possibly be divided down is by 32.

And that only in the case that ATC are distributed to towered facilities equally whether commercial or simple public-use. Which we both know they are not.

And I'll do you a really big favor and not even mention the fact that there are wayyy more than 260 ATC in New York state. Again, I was just being friendly to your view. I strongly suspect that you are also aware that there are well over 1000.

32.

Let's assume only 260 ATC for 32 towers. (Not true, but again, we're being friendly to the conspiracy nuts.) We'll further assume every tower is staffed equally. (Also not true, but again, friendly to the nuts.)

8 Controllers for each tower if those assumptions were true. Which they are not.

Why is one controller on duty in a commercial airport? Not a public-use airport, a commercial airport?

Please stop with the BS.

Number one, Trump won the presidency on the strength of his support from younger generations of Americans. It remains to be seen whether or not those younger generations will turn against Trumpism.

Number two, GenX. Not only is GenX is the generation that voted against Trumpism the most statistically speaking, they are also the smallest generation. ie - the least statistically relevant where votes are concerned. (Which is why it didn't really matter that they voted against Trump.)

I agree with your assertion that the Boomers will churn out. I disagree that it will matter that Boomers churn out. Mainly because support for Trump-like policies is, again, strongest among the younger generations. The younger generations are literally how the guy won the presidency and they will represent more of the populace in the future, not less. So until I actually see millennials and GenZ vote against Trump-like policies, I'm not really sure how things get better?

What makes you think "Social safety nets" will be the solution the élites land on?

If we were to wargame out different scenarios, we'd likely find there are a lot of potential solutions to the problem of large masses of people who are not useful to the cause of productivity in your society.

Giving non-élites a social safety net is actually one of the most resource intensive solutions. Not saying our oligarchs would not choose that solution. Just pointing out that it would severely impact their bottom lines. More than almost any other solution in fact.

To say Tahoe is the worst only reveals how few of the releases of MacOS X the poster actually used.

Maybe it's not the cheap hardware? I don't know?

But when you put the following assertions out there:

>Tahoe/iOS26 are still the most godawful buggy pieces of software Apple ever created

and

>It doesn't matter how much cheap hardware you throw at the unwashed masses

with the market data being what it is.

I guess I'm just saying those statements definitely go under the old Abe Lincoln admonition that at times "Both may be, but one MUST be, wrong."