No gods, no kings, only Atom?

They currently have a right government but its a liberal right not an authoritarian right

I’d argue apartheid , warrantless and unlimited imprisonment of an ethnic group, state censorship of the press, and a two-tier society enshrined in their constitution is pretty hard right, and authoritarian.

Only Ariel Sharon himself can even rival the current Israeli coalition government for far right bona fides, there are sitting cabinet ministers openly discussing ethnic cleansing to international press.

I also love seeing identity/symbols co-opted by authoritarians.

A maser is a device that produces coherent microwaves, through amplification by stimulated emission. The term is an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

TIL, thank you friend!

There has been development of smarter jammers that’ll ‘listen’ for the frequency used, and pump out jamming to defeat it, but I haven’t heard of a steerable unit like that - very interesting.

Yup, air burst and lasers are the leading ideas atm. But you’re still dealing with a zone of protection a kilometer or so - not a big deal to defend the main command post or vital supply depots, but spreading that out to industrial areas, grid power stations and substations, seaport complexes, or cities and your ‘blanket’ of protection starts looking too small for the job of covering the ‘want to have’ as well as the ‘need to have’ protected.

As someone who’s been following this fairly closely since the Syrians started toying with it, and the Ukrainians threw it into hyperdrive… There’s no good counter when drones are cheap to make and can be programmed to run on a flight course:

• Jamming has to fight inverse square so the radius is trash (and kills a lot of useful civil RF ranges like WiFi). Something like 200 meters is a strong system currently, and power needs ramp up fast.
• ‘Kinetic hard kill’ like traditional air defense is way too expensive per shot, plus there’s issues with UXO, debris, and limited launching platforms. Legacy air defenses like Tunguska or FlakPanzer with programmable airburst rounds work best, but at very short range and make a lot of secondary fragments by design. Taking the guns out, interceptor missiles start at five figures.
• Laser systems have a lot of promise with none of the explosive downsides whilst being cheaper per shot, but range isn’t great - you’re focusing energy to physically melt the target, and all light suffers from diffraction. It is better than jamming, but far too close for comfort.

That assumes you know the drone is coming, mind you. Piston-engine flying wings aren’t silent, but they are generally made of polymers/laminates that are hard to detect via radar. Thermal cameras and acoustic sensors so far are the best early warning systems, but radar is still a huge help.

And then there’s FPV and quadcopters. While a larger munition like Shaheed can be under $10k, even the more advanced FPV/quads with night vision (or even thermal) cameras frequently run under $1,000, up to a few thousand. Air dropped explosives have been fundamental in changing the course of the civil war in Myanmar for the rebels, it’s like having a budget Air Force and spy satellites on call.

It’s honestly a solid lane shooter FPS, but it falls flat of the Battlefield killer it could have been. Enough realism and no respawns to make you treat it seriously, but it’s also not ArmA levels of “welp, time to respawn and drive/walk to the objective for 15 minutes”

Plus doing the training unlocks the squad role slots for online play, get that season pass shit outta my face

Been done, and didn’t work. Players complained of “Slow weapon upgrades” and “No character progression” and was received poorly, needs more gritty realism.

Or explosions

Don’t let your memes stay dreams 🥰

I am against my brother, my brother and I are against my cousin, my cousin and I are against the stranger.

Fuck around with the locals, and you might find them unified against you (NSFW). The nomadic groups are no strangers to violence.

There wasn’t actual 1.0x LPVOs until like 2010, the S&B 1.3-4 and 1.1-4 was the closest for a long time.

There’s A BUNCH of claw mount electro/optics that were used before good red dots came out:

• Hendsolt ‘projector’ sight
• D-cell maglights
• Laser Products (aka Surefire) weapon light

Supplied on rolls, Bergquist SIL PAD®materials are also applicable to a fully automated pick-and-place process

The answer is money, but it’s not material cost that’s driving these crappy thermal interface pads, but labor expenses (and I’d guess consistency too). Pick-and-place is absurdly fast at putting components onto a PCB, and if they can put the pre-cut pads onto the board that’s huge for a manufacturer.

It’s the difference between slapping a post-it note, or the dot/line/X/cross/etc method with grease. No contest that TIM pads win for them, any fallouts get handled via warranty.

Correct. Dress it up however you like, but LLM and ML programs are probability gamblers all the way down. We’re building a conversation tool, that doesn’t truly comprehend the language because it’s a calculator at its core - it’s like asking your eyeballs to see in UHF frequencies.

They’re called “computers” for a reason, and we are deep in the myopic tech tree of further and further complexity. The current wave of AI has solid potential, but not globally for all applications. It is a great at ‘digital assistant’ roles and is already killing it in CCTV monitoring software. Mindjourney can make incredible images, but it can’t make art. ChatGPT can write, but it’s a terrible author or speechwriter.

Source: I work in/with electronics manufacturers

Tl; dr - a mix of value engineering and consumer preference. You wanna buy a $3k TV, or a $700 TV? How rock solid does your automatic sprinkler really need to be, compared to a satellite radio in the Sahel?

Per IPC industry standards, there’s three classes of electronic workmanship/quality control used:

• Class 1: It works, just about. Shoddy soldering is okay as long as connectivity is maintained. Passing a QA test may be as simple as “it runs when powered”. This is where most consumer grade stuff lives: calculators, watches, flashlights, etc.
• Class 2: Better built with generally more QA. Testing usually involves actually checking for function and different modes. Generally used only on commercial/civil government stuff like traffic lights, power controllers, heavy machinery - anywhere where reliability and longevity is worth paying more for.
• Class 3: Complete process control and 100% coverage function (and almost always) burn-in/stress test cycles. Top quality and cost, typically only used for military, aerospace, or medical - where stuff failing means people die.

This is an important clarification, you’re right. The yaw angle is minimal in ballistic flight, the level of keyholeing in the photo is rather dramatic. Though the 5.8x42mm is standard with a mild steel penetrator like M855, and the round was definitely built with cost as a major factor - maybe a bad lot of ammo?

5.56 (especially M855 for some reason) also exhibits ‘fleet yaw’ for the first couple of yards when fired. Factory new barrels and ammo doesn’t matter, iirc something about the rapid application of rotational force from rifling and projectile construction

Bullets – all bullets, not just .22 caliber ones – experience a period of very violent yaw and turbulence when they exit the muzzle, causing their angle of attack relative to their flight path – that is how “straight” the bullet is in flight – to vary wildly. Within 50m, they found, two bullets fired from the same gun, at essentially the same time, might impact a target at two completely different angles.

Lawful neutral cuz in 6mo when some “controller” punches three buttons to run a report and asks “Hey why’d you do that?” THEN I’ll have documentation. And a job.

Make ticket, receive assistance. Fight me on that and I’ll add you to my email inbox’s ruleset - I am now an LLM, and will gentle-tone you to death via faux misunderstandings

Look, Pytor is a loyal IT worker who carefully photoshops the jets out of all the Google Earth images - are you implying his work is futile?

Stealth fighter + stealth photo = perfect stealth, checkmate NATO

I can HIGHLY recommend brownie batter put into non-standard pans. Madeline pans make excellent bite sized brownies, and cupcakes are good too. Just don’t put too much into each one, otherwise the center doesn’t bake and achieve the desired gooey texture.

The bombs change your pronouns to “was/collateral damage” 🥰