circuscritic

So what you’re saying is that Russia has no agency, and their invasion of Ukraine is NOT it imperial in nature.

In fact, they’re only seizing Ukrainian territory to add to their own, because of the United States. And that somehow negates any aspect of Russian imperialism.

Well that makes sense, because I know one thing about Russia, and that it’s definitely not a stitched together country of conquered and subjugated people’s.

Or, hear me out, maybe it’s possible for both the United States and Russia, to wage imperial wars of aggression. Just because the United States is an imperial power, that doesn’t preclude any other great powers from acting on their own delusions of empire.

Classic Ukrainian imperialism…

Also, classic enlisted soldier get rich quick scheme: dying just to get the death benefits.

Wait a minute…what now?

These will not be used to shoot down Israeli missiles…

I’m quite aware of THAAD’s capabilities, including its tracking radars, at least as far as publicly disclosed information goes.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about this reducing, or removing, one of Iran’s primary means of deterrence against Israeli attacks.

If Israel doesn’t have to worry about the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles, it frees them up for an even more aggressive course of action.

Unless you’re suggesting that this means Israel can, and should, continue to directly attack Iran…?

This defense enables and emboldens Israeli aggression.

It removes, or significantly reduces, the threat posed by Iranian ballistic missiles.

That means, it removes, or reduces, any deterrent effect they have, on moderating Israel.

This is not good, but less because of the risk of American KIA, and more because of how it changes the Israeli calculus.

Yes, that first but confirms the news article.

And then it talks about a deployment 5 years ago for a training exercise.

These aren’t brick and mortar buildings, they’re mobile platforms, and mobile air defense batteries redeploy all the time.

Again, I am not closed to the idea that there was US military operated THAAD system in Israel during that attack, I just can’t find any reports confirming that, or even eluding to it.

Never mind, I misread that last bit. I will take a look at it later when I have a few moments, thank you.

I’m not saying it can’t be. I’m saying I don’t believe Iran has the capabilities or stockpiles available to do so, given the other American assets in theatre, or a desire to risk killing American troops.

I suspect they’re deploying THAAD because of the failures of David’s Sling during the last missile attack.

Air defense systems protect specific targets, not countries. Given the THAAD’s long track record under US operators, I would wager that the bases and targets that Iranian missiles hit, either lacked sufficient coverage, had poorly trained Israeli personnel, and/or were covered by David’s Sling.

Of course, I could be wrong, but we won’t know for many many years given how secretive Israel is on these matters.

Edit: I’m not seeing any reports of active THAAD deployments in Israel prior to this announcement, just previous deployments to Israel, including for training. But no mention if they rotated out prior to the Iranian missile strike, or that they were present for it.

I’m not saying they weren’t there, but do you have a source confirms they were present during this most recent attack?

… gladiator pit?

First off, no, this isn’t combat and I don’t suffer from that delusion…

Secondly, I’m talking about crazy vs. crazy. I want QANON nuts, antivax moms, liberals that accuse everyone they don’t like of being a Russian bot, etc.

Finally… I’m having a hard time moving past you calling this a gladiator pit, and implying that I’m a gladiator… Actually, what’s your Twitter handle. You sound like someone I should follow.

They’re air defense operators, just like gets deployed around Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.

If you want to feel bad about anything, it’s that this will significantly reduce the likelihood that Iran can threaten Israel with ballistic missiles.

THAAD is really good at what it does, and something tells me that the Iranians aren’t going to want to waste their entire stock pile on fruitless saturation attempts. To say nothing of their concerns of killing American troops.

As in, this provides Israel even greater latitude on their quest to start a hot war with Iran, without dramatically increasing any threat to their military bases and government buildings. Well, at least not from ballistic missiles.

Others may have better, or fancier solutions, but I’m a fan VPN -> Home Network -> VNC over SSH/TLS for Linux boxes, and RDP for Windows.

Again, none of VNC or RDP ports or services are ever exposed externally, and even on the LAN, they require authentication and use secure tunnels.

Full disclosure, I haven’t used RDP in a while and I don’t know what version of SSL/TLS it comes with anymore.

I know their are self-hosted AnyDesk style options and maybe they’re better than my approach, but I’ve never used them so I can’t really speak on that.

I said cultural clashes, not pedo and MAGA circlejerks.

Wait, do you not realize what an echo chamber is…?

Because that’s exactly what I don’t want in my Twitter-like experience.

I want to watch the opposing groups of internet brained waterheads, who view posting as combat, flail, whine, and throw hissy fits at each other, while on the same platform.

Stop using TeamViewer. If you can’t setup your own secure self hosted remote desktop, then at least use AnyDesk.

I’m not claiming they’re perfect, or that any SaaS RD provider is good, but TeamViewer is right there with LogMeIn as the worst of a bad bunch.

Removed by mod

One way they conduct themselves is by using the politicians they’ve purchased to advocate for forming public-private partnerships, in areas where they shouldn’t exist, which they can then legally siphon off the resources from.

I disagree on the private sector aspect of this, but I agree on the democracy part. Although, I don’t really view America as true democracy at this moment in history, but that’s besides the point here.

Fusion technology is at a point in its life cycle where it needs to be a public sector project. There is no path to profitability in the near-term, that would justify private sector involvement, except as a means to extract profit from the very expensive research process of even making this technology feasible.

Not that I’m against the private sector within the nuclear power industry. I’m very excited to see what they can do with SMR technology. I’m just extremely skeptical of most private-public partnerships, especially in cases like this.

This answer is very different depending upon your life circumstances.

A single person with fixed income, is different than a two income household with children. I’m not saying they can’t both reach the same conclusion, just at their circumstances justify different choices being valid.

There’s also your technical proficiency, and pain tolerance for saving money.

For example, you could eliminate all external services, self-host everything, and then configure an S3 object storage provider for critical cold storage backups. That might also require you spending a bit more upfront to expand your NAS storage capacity.

While that may save you a bunch of money in the long term, it will definitely cost you a lot of time and effort.

What’s convenient for you? What can you not afford to lose access to? What’s your budget? How much time do you have to manage different solutions?

Those aren’t questions for you to provide me answers for, just some of the considerations that will impact different people’s answer to this question.

Fusion reactors are incredibly complicated… This is a research reactor, with the goal of figuring out how to create sustainable fusion for real world uses by 2050.

This is not a performative action for a determinative outcome, this is aspirational and has no guarantee of achieving its goals, which is good. This type of research and science needs to be funded, even when it may fail.

Maybe this will spurn competition between powers to accelerate their own fusion reactor research, and create a virtuous cycle that accelerates this technology becoming a major source of green energy in the near, or medium-term, future.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but OnStar is a 3rd party service, so it makes sense they would have a bolt-on device that can be removed without too much concern for the rest of the car’s functionality.

Also, isn’t a TCU something that controls a car’s drivetrain and transmission?

Edit: nevermind, just searched and found telematic control unit. Interesting, thanks for the info, I might look into this more if I have more time later.

I unintentionally fibbed, because one thing I do have a bit of experience with is aftermarket car stereos, including double-DIN android units.

Granted, I haven’t tried to install one in a 2024 car, but a lot of modern infotainment systems can’t just be ripped out and replaced with aftermarket unit and retain the car’s original functionality, if it can be removed at all without breaking, or removing your access to core functions, like climate control, etc.

Here’s a picture of the interior of one of the cars in question, a 2024 Mazda CX-90

You’re not popping a double DIN in there, and even if you did remove the screen, I’m betting the actual infotainment system boards are inside the dash somewhere installed in a mounted panel box, and they aren’t just going to pop out and be replaceable like your standard head unit.

Another photo, this one from the linked article:

I might regret not searching about this before running my mouth here, but I would assume most automotive manufacturers, in 2024, are soldering the wwan modules onto the main board of the infotainment system for cost, and to prevent user removal of their subscription vector.

I would also assume most manufacturers who are converting standard automotive features into paid subscription services that dubiously rely on SaaS backends, are NOT also designing isolated architectures that separate the IoT infotainment system from the car’s critical systems like drive control, transmission, brakes, etc. I’m guessing most at least have CAN bus connections linking them together.

But I don’t know enough about cars and automotive systems to even pretend being knowledgeable. So, if anyone here is actually well versed on this subject (and not just searching forums before replying to me), please tell me I’m wrong, and how so.

Seriously, I want to be wrong about this.