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nindalf commented on VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in   ft.com/content/356674b0-9... · Posted by u/mmarian
password54321 · a month ago
Destroy cultural integrity, national identity, create a low-trust society, become more authoritarian to manage low-trust society, import more immigrants at an exponential rate while house costs rise along with unemployment. The list keeps going. This is why far-right is surging on the polls. The country has completely lost all sense.
nindalf · a month ago
Incredible that you’ve managed to bring this conversation to immigration. In fact, it sounds like you’re saying the root cause of this crappy policy is somehow immigrants.

Far fetched and not cool.

nindalf commented on Why does a fire truck cost $2m   thehustle.co/originals/wh... · Posted by u/Guid_NewGuid
nine_k · a month ago
Speaking of Javelin missiles, mentioned upthread. In 2022, when the war in Ukraine erupted, the small stock of Javelins which the NATO countries were able to provide was spent in like first several months. After that, $300 drones carrying a $1000 armor-piercing round started to dominate the battlefield, leading to terrible losses in Russian armor, especially the newest and most expensive tanks. Similarly, having lost a number of advanced and expensive aircraft, and watching advanced and expensive cruise missiles mostly shot down during airstrikes, Russian forces turned to expendable drones imported from Iran (!) and expendable rockets imported from North Korea (!!).

In other terms, Protoss-type technology works well when you have a large advantage and need to deal a decisive blow; an example would be B-2s bombing the Iran nuclear facilities. But when you're in a protracted conflict against a capable adversary, Zerg-type technology, cheap, flimsy, and truly massively produced, seems to be indispensable.

nindalf · a month ago
It’s interesting to see both kinds of drones in Ukraine as well. Ukrainian drones are built for €300 or so and they’re staggeringly effective. “Western” drones as made by Helsing and other companies cost several thousand. While they may have more features, it’s not clear that they’re doing 10x more damage than the Ukrainian ones.

Ukraine plans to buy 4.5 drones in 2025. They’re definitely going with volume over software features. Further they’re allowing frontline drone regiments to earn “points” based on kills and using the points to buy their own drones instead of allocating them top down. The regiments appear to be favouring the cheap drones over expensive ones like the Helsing HF-1.

What’s interesting is that European governments are probably going to end up buying tens of thousands of the expensive drones because the laundry list of features, rather than investing in true mass production like the Ukrainians have. Going the Protoss way, rather than Zerg.

nindalf commented on Why does a fire truck cost $2m   thehustle.co/originals/wh... · Posted by u/Guid_NewGuid
readthenotes1 · a month ago
It didn't really take off until WW2--Eisenhower warned us of the military-industrial complex in his last days in office, but chickened out of of military-industrial-congressional complex at the last minute apparently.

There was no real standing Army until WW2 since it's against the Constitution. That's why the Marines (part of the Navy) were all over the place supporting US business interests, but not draining the public purse too heavily (look up Smedly Butler for a good read)

nindalf · a month ago
> There was no real standing Army until WW2 since it's against the Constitution.

This isn’t true. Firstly it isn’t against the Constitution to maintain a standing Army. What the Constitution says in Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 is “The Congress shall have Power To ...raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years...”

The people drafting the Constitution knew that a standing army could be abused by a tyrant, but having served in the Continental Army also knew how vital a standing Army was to maintain peace. That’s why they designed it so Congress controls the purse strings and authorises military spending only for 2 years at a time. The executive may give the orders, but there’s a time limit on the Army he can give orders to.

And the second part - the US has had a standing Army since 1796. You remember Robert E Lee resigning from the Army to join the Confederacy? If there was no standing Army, what did he resign from?

But even leaving aside these two historical facts, think about it logically. Throughout history military advantage has always been with the better trained, more experienced troops. Even if you rely on conscripts in a war, they need to be trained and led by professionals. Saying a standing army shouldn’t exist is like firing all your firefighters and saying you’ll start hiring when someone reports a fire.

nindalf commented on UK unis to cough up to £10M on Java to keep Oracle off their backs   theregister.com/2025/06/1... · Posted by u/miles
v5v3 · 3 months ago
Yes but it is still controlled by Google and has not been moved to a foundation? Like for example the Rust Foundation.
nindalf · 3 months ago
Controlled in the sense that most of the maintainers are Google employees. But how does that make a difference? The tool chain is available as FOSS, there’s no possibility of a rug pull.
nindalf commented on Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad with more than 240 onboard   theguardian.com/world/liv... · Posted by u/Gud
amit9gupta · 3 months ago
I had been a Economist subscriber for almost 20 years. But then gradually I realized that their reporting on some issues are extremely biased and they conveniently skip reporting some facts to match their intended narrative and lead the reader to distorted conclusions. So I would assume they would be doing the same with other topics as well. I did not renew my subscription.
nindalf · 3 months ago
Could you give some examples?
nindalf commented on Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content   economictimes.indiatimes.... · Posted by u/matheusmoreira
JumpCrisscross · 3 months ago
> Who is going to join a forum dedicated to discussing rape? Absolute weirdos

The folks who go to these [1] and these [2].

We are way into that at least I am not knowledgeable about. I’d be curious about an expert’s take on the value of unmoderated YouTube and TikTok content on this issue.

[1] https://www.nationalsexualassaultconference.org/

[2] https://www.survivorsofsexualassaultanonymous.com/

nindalf · 3 months ago
These guys are fine, but they can’t drive broader societal change if the words “sexual assault” or “rape” is scrubbed from mainstream discourse. Imagine if HN autodeleted any comment with these words, we couldn’t even have this conversation.
nindalf commented on Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content   economictimes.indiatimes.... · Posted by u/matheusmoreira
JumpCrisscross · 3 months ago
> YouTubers and TikTokers go out of their way not to use certain words that lead to being demonetised or having their reach limited. They use euphemisms like unalive or grape instead of suicide and rape.

I'm with you on finding this personally annoying. But the question is whether a dedicated forum for discussing suicide or rape, one where the incentives of an unqualified influencer paid by views and product endorsements are better considered, is superior for these matters.

We don't, by analogy, randomly launch into suicide and rape in the middle of a cocktail party. Instead, we naturally seclude ourselves with the people we want to discuss it with, people we tend to have chosen thoughtfully, and usually with some warning that what we want to discuss is weighty. Not doing any of that online strikes me as, if not a problem, a legitimate concern.

nindalf · 3 months ago
Who is going to join a forum dedicated to discussing rape? Absolute weirdos, that's who. But you're not going to enact any kind of broad societal change by talking only to those weirdos. You need to reach a broad audience and convince them this is a problem worth tackling.
nindalf commented on Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad with more than 240 onboard   theguardian.com/world/liv... · Posted by u/Gud
ant6n · 3 months ago
The problem is, they often assume you already read the news and don’t say what happen just provide the analysis without context.

Heck, Spiegel does that with news on the same day. You get some background article without starting with the facts of what happened, as if everybody reads the news every two hours.

nindalf · 3 months ago
This is why I like the Economist. They don't assume the reader has background knowledge.
nindalf commented on Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad with more than 240 onboard   theguardian.com/world/liv... · Posted by u/Gud
LostMyLogin · 3 months ago
Suggestions for some sources to read? I know the Economist, anything else others would recommend?
nindalf · 3 months ago
Economist for me. I don't know of any other sources that can reach the same level.

u/nindalf

KarmaCake day17479August 25, 2014
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