fatbird

5 ms·

31.
by fatbird 4mo ago
Iran will clearly end up much richer and thus stronger than before, with fewer international trade impediments. So Iran having a nuke is objectively much closer and more likely than before.
32.
by fatbird 4mo ago
The bad actors were killed, and the children of the bad actors took over. Same regime, now more firmly in control. While before, Iran's assets worldwide were frozen, they're now receiving back $25 billion of it. Also, the sancti
33.
by fatbird 4mo ago
This is very charitable assumption.
34.
by fatbird 4mo ago
For a second I was excited that someone had built a space station in Earth's orbit secretly. Perhaps a military station by a world power, perhaps a minor power's attempt to achieve a continuous presence in space, perhaps a privat
35.
by fatbird 4mo ago
Will Ferguson wrote a book named _Bastards and Boneheads_ [0] that told the history of Canada's prime ministers as one or the other. The bastards made history, the boneheads are remembered for their folly. Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau
36.
by fatbird 5mo ago
The longer term of continuing to buy businesses, load them with debt, strip them of value, and move on to the next, promises much better ROI than focussing on a single business.
37.
by fatbird 5mo ago
I don't follow this example. Isn't stripping screw heads a skills issue? How does a tool help/hurt with that?
38.
by fatbird 5mo ago
Perfect. The dirty little secret of this strategy is that most people's uses just aren't that demanding, so the cheap stuff is more than sufficient. Additionally, breaking a cheap tool is a great indicator of where your real nee
39.
by fatbird 5mo ago
Honestly, Ryobi is fine for just about anything a non-professional will need. Buy it, use it until it breaks (if it does), and then consider whether a more expensive one will be necessary. I started with Ryobi and burned out a drill usin
40.
by fatbird 5mo ago
True, the Metaverse was a practical product failure, rather than an impossible-in-principle failure. Regardless, a lot of smart people worked a long time trying to make it work, and it was pretty obvious it wouldn't once Zuck demo&#x2
41.
by fatbird 5mo ago
How many smart people worked quietly on Zuck's metaverse for years? How many knew it was never going to work at some point on the line to $70 billion wasted, but thought "hey, maybe I'm wrong, and it's an interesting jo
42.
by fatbird 5mo ago
They're hucksters who know that adding "in space!" to a sales pitch is a free booster for tech enthusiasts. It's the same way that Sam Altman talks about the risks of AI deciding to kill humanity: because that's dra
43.
by fatbird 5mo ago
Sy Hersh hasn't been credible for a long time. We know Israel has a variety of nuclear weapons, but don't trust anything Hersh asserts without credible independent support. Agree with the rest of your point.
44.
by fatbird 5mo ago
I know, this makes me crazy. The response should have been "... and?! You mean the intelligence community has a worldwide network for raking local information that also accrues goodwill to the US, and you want to end that ?"
45.
by fatbird 6mo ago
Are you this patronizing and condescending in the rest of your life?
46.
by fatbird 6mo ago
Your link is 5 years old. This one is 3 days old: "IMF sees Canada's fiscal position as strongest in G7" [0] [0] https://financialpost.com/news/economy/imf-sees-canadas-fina...
47.
by fatbird 6mo ago
I would love to read a more detailed article on this device. I came back from reading the article with this exact question.
48.
by fatbird 6mo ago
The price is set by how much providers can extract, not by their costs to provide. It's not at all obvious that a vast reduction in their cost of labour would translate to price reductions. It's worth keeping in mind that in the U
49.
by fatbird 6mo ago
$2m is the current toll that Iran has already successfully charged any ships it allows. It amounts to an extra $1/barrel, so it's a trivial tax in comparison to what the supply shock is causing in fluctuations. China has already
50.
by fatbird 6mo ago
If Iran's 10 points become the basis of the peace, it ratifies Iran's sovereignty over the strait, at which point they can raise the price. It will be years before alternative routes devalue control of the strait, during which ti
51.
by fatbird 6mo ago
$2MM per tanker for safe passage is an extra $100 billion a year in revenue, which is peanuts next to the world's de facto acknowledgement that Iran now has sovereign control of the Strait of Hormuz and can charge whatever it wants.
52.
by fatbird 6mo ago
I met someone a couple years ago who was a U2 pilot (which are still in active service). He'd flown F-16s until he reached the point in the promotion ladder where flying stopped, then switched to U2s to keep being a pilot. After hitt
53.
by fatbird 7mo ago
There's a basic loop that goes on regardless: 1. define a requirement 2. implement the requirement 3. verify that the requirement was implemented TDD was built around the idea that 1 and 3 could be unified in automated testing, and tha
54.
by fatbird 7mo ago
Imagine the poor post-doc in the back of the truck, no seatbelt, watching and noting anything going on, while the driver is doing donuts in a parking lot to really stress-test the magnetic containment.
55.
by fatbird 7mo ago
Public employee unions are contrary to the interests of taxpayers This is not obvious on its face, but also, paying taxes is not my only concern wrt the civil society in which I live.
56.
by fatbird 7mo ago
In WW2, was there an existing organisation for a coordinated response? In the Korean War? Was NATO the organization that coordinated allies in the Persian Gulf War?
57.
by fatbird 7mo ago
When did America defend Canada's interests that didn't coincide with American interests?
58.
by fatbird 7mo ago
In those countries (i.e., middle eastern countries) power and wealth is usually more connected to gov't and the military rather than independent industries. If you are a nepo-baby, your opportunities will tend to be more gov't&
59.
by fatbird 7mo ago
Not to mention that the world is very widely designed to be manipulated by hands: doorknobs, handles, container sizes. A unique door opening appendage isn't going to do much good around your house.
60.
by fatbird 7mo ago
Same here. It's a fading memory, but the decade following 9/11 really did feature a lot of big brains turning THE COMING CALIPHATE into an existential threat to humanity. Which seems quaint, now.

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