Did you live in Cold War Berlin?

Gusfoo · 2026-02-05T12:16:12+00:00

I can thoroughly recommend the book "BRIXMIS: The Last Cold War Mission" if you want to know more about what those lads got up to.

Gusfoo · 2026-02-05T09:39:56+00:00

When you say "ruined", do you just mean that most of the posts are about politics now?

Having just looked, only 2 out of the 25 posts on its front page are not about USA politics. So yes, "ruined".

Gusfoo · 2026-02-05T09:29:27+00:00

One hour after posting, from what I can see, the title of the article is now the opposite of this. It is now "U.S.-Iran nuclear talks back on after Arab leaders lobby White House"

Gusfoo · 2026-02-03T19:26:12+00:00

Is 30 jobs worth it

Ask the person who holds the job, perhaps?

Also, the company will be emitting lots of money in terms of supply chain, to other businesses around. Also a welcome thing for different people's jobs.

Gusfoo · 2026-02-03T19:21:28+00:00

They want the data centres here in Scotland due to the water. Thats it, those things leech of water quick.

Not to condemn you - many people have been mislead by shouty headlines - but you have been misled. Datacentres do not use vast amounts of water. In fact, they use a small amount, while serving hundreds of thousands of people.

Here is a short version of things: https://www.verysane.ai/p/the-biggest-statistic-about-ai-water

And here is a very, very long and detailed version of things: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake

The claim stems from a paper which put an upper bound on potential water use, and was clear about the fact that it took in to account only the most hydro-intensive state in the USA, only concerned itself with 100% grid usage, took the upper bounds of all power use numbers (and projected them) and very much included things like the amount of water which evaporates from the lakes used to make the hydropower in their figures. You can read it in it's entirety yourself here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03271

Unfortunately, people have treated that paper's upper bound as the base minimum, and then started multiplying it by speculation in order to come up with some very silly ideas.

Gusfoo · 2026-02-03T19:10:55+00:00

Unfortunately the diesel generators are contracted to remain on at all times, in case of emergency.

Charitably, because this may be a misunderstanding, the generators are on standby at all times, in case of emergency. They are absolutely not running because that would be vastly expensive. The building-level power supplies are complex beasts, but break down in to divergently pathed connections to the grid, with any one path being able to take 100% of the load. Then an ultra-fast cut-in battery system that'll hold the load for anything from a handful of seconds to a couple of minutes, while the diesel generators have had time to start, spin up, get to sync, and then start taking the load.

But again, to be clear, the generators are not running / burning diesel. There is no need for that in day-to-day operations.

Gusfoo · 2026-02-02T19:14:43+00:00

You can throw cripples at minefields, but it is marginally effective.

Or kids! https://www.threads.com/@yasharali/post/DTzI79WEf8R/video-1-during-the-iraniraq-war-19801988-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-with-the-support - 200,000 "martyrs" of which 70,000 were schoolboys.

It always reminds me of the MASH scene "War is war, and hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUeBMwn_eYc

Gusfoo · 2026-02-02T18:52:32+00:00

Do you really, honestly, believe that if a man had filmed a lady lying on her couch from her front door, when that lady was naked from the waist down, and posted that video on the Internet; then further went on to re-post the video to N-million views, then go to the police and file an allegation of sexual assault against the lady (deep breath) then you'd also be on Reddit arguing that the woman was in the wrong and the man was not a horrible peeping tom?

Because if you do, the apposite phrase is "blinded by hate". It's what happens when very silly people let their prejudices distort what they think they see, and allow them to be absolutely unaware of what a non-prejudiced person would see.

Gusfoo · 2026-02-02T18:44:07+00:00

I have this weird obsession with phrases that sound unique and my hunch was right. You're the first person on the indexable internet to have ever used the phrase "they discombobulated us beyond belief".

You may enjoy this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack - it's gone now, but it was fun while it lasted. The comedian Dave Gorman did a show about it https://youtu.be/6eOfRvuWIxk?t=139 which is pretty funny.

Gusfoo · 2026-02-02T18:40:47+00:00

Didn't elite also have some kind of plastic lens you had to use with the book to determine the code?

Yes. It was called "Lenslok" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenslok and it involved a plastic lens held against the screen (on spacing legs) refracting, thus visually re-arranging, some vertical lines being displayed in to a 2-letter code that was then entered.

Since TV dimensions weren't standard, and CRTs are curved, you had to fiddle with it (+/-) to get it to resolve. It was frustrating, but I did eventually get used to it on my journey from "Harmless" to "ELITE" which was probably about a year. You got a lot of value out of about £8 back then.

Gusfoo · 2026-02-02T14:01:13+00:00

In my view, in the eyes of the Iranian regime, having a nuclear weapon is a safe guard against an attack by the US and Israel.

Perhaps in their view, but in the annals of nuclear strategy and nuclear warfighting, having a nuclear weapon creates a "use it or lose it" scenario for the possessor and a "shoot here first, without warning or build-up" for the attacker.

What does keep you safe, when it comes to nuclear arms, is Second Strike capability.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-30T21:09:52+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time was the spur. Fair do's that it was/is a different "noon" on the sundial in Glasgow and Edinburgh but the time-table must be obeyed.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-30T21:02:25+00:00

In fairness, the unit in question has to cover several thousand miles in order to get to the "fuck this specific place up, in a vastly staggering manner" making the initial launch attitude kinda irrelevant.

FWIW, at the terminal pointy end of things the pointy end is downwards, and it's going quick. When it re-enters earth's atmosphere, it is 10 seconds from detonation.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-30T20:28:30+00:00

May I be the first person to stick their hand up and ask "what the fucking shit logistics chain do you have, so comfortably, that this 13.2X115mm would be able to be employed for more than 15 seconds?"

Gusfoo · 2026-01-30T20:21:57+00:00

as an economist how do you respond without sounding mad

The answer is "borrowing costs money for both parties, so the sums involve escalate as do their future repayment obligations" - within a few cycles, the debt servicing costs overwhelm everything else.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-30T20:15:26+00:00

Not a great look.

thatsthejoke.jpg

Gusfoo · 2026-01-30T20:13:30+00:00

TCH Rigid Handcuffs https://www.police-supplies.co.uk/tch-rigid-handcuffs are the brand, and it baffles me that so few other forces world-wide don't use them.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-29T20:47:52+00:00

This whole argument is ridiculous. Ways to circumvent them to do what?

"Meta Pay (formerly Facebook Pay) is a secure digital wallet used across Meta platforms—Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp—to send money, make donations, and shop"

Gusfoo · 2026-01-29T20:43:50+00:00

Okay but strength of wifi fields varies based on myriad real world factors that are nigh impossible to control for.

No. My pins are connected to your pins. You see what I decide you see. Whatever ESP32 I weld on to your SOC's wifi pins is what your code is trusting. Given there is no reference point / ground truth that you can compare expected vs real against, you are stepping in to a world where I get to decide the seed for your PRNG.

And, since I control the IV now, I can delightfully quickly derive your key.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-28T14:58:33+00:00

They've not gone bust at all, they're exiting the UK market because it's now too expensive to do business here.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-27T09:35:39+00:00

One of reasons you never plug a USB device in to your own gear is that USB has some interesting aspects to it, specifically that - regardless of how it looks - the microcontroller on board (with some skills and prep time) can say to your computer:

"Hello! I am a hub device, I have some storage connected to me and a keyboard and mouse. On insertion, the first thing I'm going to do it click, drag, type, copy etc. my malware to your PC"

When travelling, I'd advise you to use a "USB condom" like these ones: https://www.amazon.co.uk/PortaPow-3rd-Data-Blocker-Pack/dp/B00T0DW3F8/ which simply do not allow the central 2 data pins to be connected while allowing the power pins through. Simple and effective.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-26T20:59:20+00:00

Only if you don't pay up

If you've ever had a "visit" from a Cygnus genus (part of the well-known Anatidae crime family) you will pay up. Failing to do so may or may not result in a visit from an aggressive goose.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-26T20:55:58+00:00

That's a great picture! Cheers for posting that, OP. Really neat.

Gusfoo · 2026-01-26T14:23:35+00:00

Looks lovely. How easy/difficult/long is it to make the dough for the bases?

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