tal avatar

tal

@tal@kbin.social

Trying a switch to tal@lemmy.today, at least for a while, due to recent kbin.social stability problems and to help spread load.

tal,
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I use these tools.

That being said, I think that a lot of the value of knowing them comes specifically from their ability to let one cobble together things to automate the broader Unix environment, for which they are invaluable.

If one's goal is specifically exploratory data analysis, I think that one probably gets more bang-for-the-buck in learning GNU R or something like that.

tal,
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Han is the captain. The captain of a ship makes the calls as to what it does, and the Millennium Falcon came back.

I think a better question is why Luke gets special recognition versus the other pilots. I mean, he happened to be the one to make the final shot that blew up the Death Star, but everyone else in the squadrons went in too.

tal,
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I'm thinking that this is some sort of joke article at City AM, because it's always convention to define an acronym at first use, and they didn't just omit it -- like, it probably wasn't just an editorial error -- but put it in at the very end of the article.

tal, (edited )
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"The solution is obvious: in addition to mobile large-caliber machine guns, there are plenty of simpler and cheaper anti-aircraft systems available today that have proven themselves to be effective against Shaheds. These include Gepard and Vampire."

I hadn't been really following the VAMPIRE. It was apparently announced last year as going to Ukraine at some point in 2023 as part of the effort to counter Shaheds.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/what-the-vampire-weapon-system-the-u-s-is-sending-to-ukraine-can-actually-do

I am assuming that given that there hasn't been a lot of discussion about it yet, though, it's either not yet doing a good job or isn't available in sufficient numbers to make a significant difference.

It shoots Hydra 70 rockets modified with a laser guidance kit, so it's probably quite short-range; if the price of each missile is the same as the APKWS I, each will cost about as much as a Shahed, so while it's considerably more-affordable than most of the other SAMs being used, it's also not a hard counter in terms of it being much cheaper to shoot down a Shahed than to launch one.

Hydra 70s are something that the US has built and used in the past in large quantities, and still manufactures, so I would assume that coming up with a lot of them is not a problem. I don't know about scale to manufacture the laser homing system.

I assume that the idea here is that the missile gets a cheap and simple laser guidance kit, and the fancier hardware goes on the (reusable) launcher, which doesn't get consumed in shooting down a Shahed, so it should be pretty sustainable.

The downside is that with limited range, Ukraine would probably need a lot of them to cover a lot of targets in Ukraine, since each unit cannot cover a very large radius. It'll be a point-defense system.

As for the Gepard, while Germany can now manufacture ammunition for it again and restarted production, the SPAAG itself has been out of production for a long time, and I doubt that Germany will rebuild the production lines, so while it may be a good match for low-end drones like the Shahed, the number in Ukraine is probably about all that are likely to show up, unless some of the countries that operate old Gepards can be convinced to turn some of them over.. According to Wikipedia, Germany and the US have been repurchasing what Gepards can be had from other countries, so there are some more that will come:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard

Jordan: 60 have been received from retired Dutch surplus for 21 million dollars.[23] In May 2023, the Pentagon confirmed that an undisclosed number had been purchased by the U.S. for $118 million using funds from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, with an expected delivery date of May 30, 2024.[24][25] The U.S. plans to deliver up to 30 to Ukraine before the end of 2023, according to the German Defense Ministry.[26]

Qatar: In December 2020, it was announced that a license had been issued for the export of a total of 15 Gepard anti-aircraft vehicles to Qatar. Furthermore, four automatic cannons, 30 barrels, 16,000 rounds of ammunition and 45 breechblocks will be delivered as spare parts. These were purchased in order to ensure air security for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In early 2023, German government officials began negotiating with Qatar the possible purchase of their 15 Gepards to send these to Ukraine.[27] In May 2023, it was reported that these 15 Gepards may have been repurchased by Germany for Ukraine.[28]

tal,
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Not, strictly-speaking, Ukraine, but seems relevant. I suppose that people in Russia may be even more disconnected from the rest of the Internet after this.

tal,
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I suppose it was just a matter of time for this to happen, once the Russian government started cracking down on domestic Internet use in Russia.

tal,
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I don't think that there's an immediate application for specifically making carrots, because I doubt that the economics work, but I can imagine a world where we manufacture a lot more food than we do today.

tal,
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Unfortunately, we haven't managed to domesticate huckleberries, so getting the huckleberries for the sauce is probably going to be a pain if you don't live somewhere near where they grow in the wild.

tal,
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https://archive.ph/LSiRh

tal,
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Ehh....Not really a mechanism for that that I can see. I mean, say that there's demand for that, which I can believe. Do I go to a given distro and buy a "security hardened" version? I don't see how that would work. Is the distro going to refrain from incorporating security fixes into the "non-hardened" free version?

tal,
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Railway

The Vatican Railway (Italian: Ferrovia Vaticana) was opened in 1934 to serve Vatican City and its only station, Vatican City (Città del Vaticano [tʃitˈta ddel vatiˈkaːno], or Stazione Vaticana [statˈtsjoːne vatiˈkaːna]). The main rail tracks are standard gauge and 300 metres (980 ft) long, with two freight sidings, making it the shortest national railway system in the world.[1] Access to the Italian rail network is over a viaduct to Roma San Pietro railway station, and is guaranteed by the Lateran Treaty dating from 1929. The tracks and station were constructed during the reign of Pope Pius XI, shortly after the treaty.

Beginning in 2015, one passenger service runs each Saturday morning with passengers for Castel Gandolfo. Most other rail traffic consists of inbound freight goods, although the railway has occasionally carried other passengers, usually for symbolic or ceremonial reasons.[2][3]

tal,
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Well, you've got Ardour. But I suspect that there are people who do want this software package.

tal, (edited )
tal avatar

I don't know if France24 is doing it because the US uses a leading currency symbol, but if so, we in the US obtained the convention of having a leading currency symbol from the British, so technically it's the Europization of Europe.

I am kind of inclined to think that France24 isn't doing it because it's a US convention, as the date right below it is DD/MM/YYYY, while the US convention would be MM/DD/YYYY (and in my opinion, the world standard should probably be YYYY-MM-DD, but that's another story).

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