thrwy_meta

>>>You either accept a moral responsibility to protect sovereign nations from elimination

And yet we've been arming the Saudis while they starve and bomb the Yemenis into oblivion for the past 10 years.

>>>This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole Eastern Europe

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Wars-are-only-evil-when-West...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civili...

I find the degree to which HN has taken umbrage with this particular war.....unsurprising, yet extremely telling.

We airlifted M777 howitzers to them in the blink of an eye, by the standards of government/military bureaucracy. Meanwhile out here in the First Island Chain we've been begging for reinforcements/gear/funding for the inevitable fight with China and THAT shit is definitely being slow-walked in comparison.

There are also larger issues to consider beyond just "we want the help the Ukrainians". The best stuff we can send has a bunch of sensitive NATO/US technical information (radio comms, etc.). Do we want to risk that gear falling into Russian hands (and by extension probably getting shared with China)? If the answer is "no", we either have to send alternatives or send the equipment to depot maintenance areas to have the sensitive tech removed. That takes time.

Do we want to risk escalating the war outside of Ukraine, if the Russians respond kinetically to armaments shipments? The answer is again an emphatic "no" from almost every nation except maybe Poland.

Hence the popular snarky refrain: "NATO will fight Russia to the last drop of Ukrainian blood". Western governments and people will "stand with Ukraine" as long as it doesn't involve them really risking anything (such as themselves being on the receiving end of Russian missiles or artillery).

A properly-sized invasion force given the physical size of Ukraine, and the size of its army, should have been 400,000-600,000 strong. Russia went in with <200,000, with its force structure badly allocated (not enough infantrymen or logistics guys), and has still managed to occupy a land area larger than Portugal + Ireland combined. And they've done that with essentially their peacetime standing forces. From the perspective of how the Russian army is "supposed" to fight (with a massive mobilization to flesh out its units), this invasion is essentially with one hand tied behind its back by improper force design/employment, and the other tied by rampant corruption. Still, Russia is beating Ukraine to death with headbutts...and also suffering a TBI in the process.

"Quantity has a quality all its own". They aren't considered "strong" because individual Russian battalions are expert warfighters per se. They're considered "strong" because the Russian military-industrial complex in its totality is not something that can be idly ignored by anyone except maybe the US or China.

Basically Russia scores high on 3 particular Principles of War: Mass, Offensive, and Simplicity. Not so well on the other 6 though.

https://www.trngcmd.marines.mil/Portals/207/Docs/TBS/B2B2269...

>>>Since the charity is run by a board and bound to abide by its charter, it's not the same thing as the person controlling the wealth himself

I would expect this to be a "distinction without a difference" if the billionaire is careful/competent about how he staffs the board and how he writes the charter.

>>>The most productive decades in the US correspond with its highest relative tax rates, between the fifties and the eighties.

The most productive decades in the US also correspond with a period when the US was essentially the only industrial power not absolutely shattered by World War 2. In global economic terms, the post-war period was a huge anomaly, and I would be hesitant to tie too many conclusions/correlative effects to something as singular as domestic tax policy.

>>>I'm not sure how I would get that research, or if it's even possible.

Military Operations Research is a huge field. I like to use Google Scholar, which has many Masters Theses from military grad students, etc... Here's a few results to walk you "on target" if you want to continue to dig:

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA545145.pdf

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA618622.pdf

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=airb...

>>>How exactly did they give away the location?

They didn't, not with sufficient detail. Hence the need for the sonar on the submersibles, probably need to do some undersea mapping to pinpoint the wreck. I only know it is "near" Islas del Rosario. It's in water 950 meters deep, so the average concerned citizen can't exactly strap on a wetsuit and go poking around the ocean floor for it.

This site [1] from 2015 claimed it was in 300 meter waters, ~25km from Cartagena. Some of the infographics suggest it is NW of Isla del Tesoro. Maybe best to look at nautical charts of the area, and plot a course from west of Isla Rosario to northwest of Isla del Tesoro, along the part of the sea floor that is ~900m deep (course runs roughly NE). Map/scan that with the sonar on the submersibles, focus on major "outcroppings" that are possibly the San Jose (or the other two nearby shipwrecks). For a second pass, go straight to those outcroppings with a higher-resolution scan, plus visual cameras (use the released photos as reference for visual confirmation). Once pinpointed, send in the bigger cargo-carrier sub with robotic arms, excavator shovel, etc. and start scooping up the treasure.

Split it 60/40 with HSBC, and your team still gets to keep ~$4.7 BILLION. That's a better unicorn offramp than building yet another BS SaaS cloud app.

[1] https://blog.geogarage.com/2015/12/spanish-galleon-may-conta...

I wonder how well the Colombian Navy patrols this area. I doubt they have a 24/7/365 presence.

This is begging for a pitch deck to a shady bank like HSBC: angel fund my startup to rapidly design/deploy some sonar-equipped unmanned submersibles to locate and snatch as much of this gold as possible from under everyone's noses. I know a guy who works robotics, a guy who studied underwater comms, a geologist interested in undersea mining....I can probably dig up a retired submariner through some Navy contacts....Hmmmm...

You don't need a sub with the crush depth of a Triton 36000/2[1] (price: $50 million), but you do need something with a large carry capacity to reduce the number of trips needed to exploit the site. Maybe something like Boeing's Orca would suffice. [2][3] Even if you spent $100 mil on the sub, $100 mil on the surface ship and staff, maybe even a few million bribing some Colombian Navy/Coast Guard officers.....for a chance to make off with $12 billion in gold (at the current spot price)? Seems like a no-brainer for somebody to fund such an endeavor.

[1] https://tritonsubs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Datasheet-...

[2] https://www.naval-technology.com/analysis/boeing-orca-xluuv-...

[3] https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a263440...

I like to brainstorm "engineering black swan events", and thought it would be interesting to use torpedoes/unmanned submersible IEDs/fertilizer-filled bulk freighters to attack major container ports, while simultaneously shorting the stocks of the publicly-traded companies that own/operate them. They seem like a very vulnerable part of the world's economy/supply chain.

Chris Harris drifting Ferraris in slow motion is some of the best car content on Youtube. Terrible to hear they banned him, but unsurprising. I also watched a segment where someone interviewed Jay Leno about why he doesn't own a Ferrari and he went on a rant about their snobbish behaviour, but it sounded like he was still upset after trying to buy one in the 80s/90s. Terrible customer service/arrogance, when you burn popular "car culture ambassadors" like these.

I fell in love with Lamborghinis when I was young (late Countach/early Diablo era) so I've always preferred their style, but now with their extended period of German ownership they are quite credible performance cars as well (Audi Le Mans/GT influence, perhaps?).

>>>There's no biological justification for this

Do you have children? I'm father to a 16-month old. The first few months especially, our daughter would not go to sleep unless my wife held her. No amount of compassion on my part could overcome the ingrained link a newborn has with its mother.

You are basically arguing that new mothers can have their babies ripped from their arms while they get shackled to their cubicle, and that this will have no negative impacts on the child's development......all in the pursuit of "equality"? This strikes me as....misguided.

>>> The trick is you need to know someone who works there.

The people at Meta/FB who are in charge of this stuff have IG models throwing sex at them to get accounts restored. I'd be surprised if those guys take action to fix the account of someone who isn't making it....ahem worth their while, so to speak.

https://www.newsweek.com/onlyfans-star-slept-meta-employees-...