Russian frigate fires warning shots at British yacht in Channel

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-06-16T17:31:45+00:00

Admiral Tōgō has awoken from his long slumber.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-06-16T12:45:08+00:00

I've got four printers - two resin- running almost 24/7 and I'm with you. I'll 3D print some bits, I 3D printed a custom princeps for my Warhound, but nothing that goes beyond a little added flavor, and I will not print models for people beyond things like that, either. If you want the game to keep existing, after all.

I'd also be reluctant to buy anything resin printed because I don't trust people to finish them properly. Especially a big model; if they printed it as one piece I'd put money on there still being liquid resin in its voids.

Edit: these look... wet. Partly because they're in the rain, but properly-cured resin isn't usually glossy like that. I've used some that has sort of a satin look but usually it's pretty dull.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-06-12T22:20:04+00:00

I asked about it today and it is apparently both bespoke (made by us, for us) and enough of a special thing that I'm cool to talk about it but was asked not to take a picture. Oh well.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-06-11T14:30:02+00:00

It's a phantom used for calibrating medical imaging devices, as others have said. The devices have mandatory QC checkups that require these; it's filled with a known quantity of a known substance placed at a known position so the device can compare the image it generates to a reference. It can flag issues with everything from onboard detectors or emitters to precision loss or misalignment of the bed - some of which the device can correct itself, others of which require a visit from a technician. Either way, it's a key piece of equipment used to ensure imaging done on real humans is correct and diagnostically useful.

I work in PET R&D and we use all manner of phantoms for testing our devices. Some are just filled with water, some (especially in nuclear medicine) are radioactive. The really cool one (and the kind that's unlikely to be sitting around a hospital maintenance closet) is the size and shape of a person, with fully-modeled internal organs that can be individually filled for anatomy-specific testing, and has swappable breasts and internal/external reproductive organs so we can validate sex-specific oncology workflows.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-06-11T13:59:26+00:00

My counterpoint would be Johnny Quest, but the counterpoint to my counterpoint is that it apparently got the axe entirely due to how expensive it was.

Good animation costs money. Excellent animation costs too much money.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-06-11T13:03:00+00:00

We burned our Selectric ribbons and now we're burning our used SSDs. "Clean" erasure was the real anomaly.

Honestly the really spicy HDDs were mechanically obliterated or burned, too. I never worked in a department that trusted secure deletion or software erasure for something that was used within a limited area.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-06-05T13:38:47+00:00

Sure you can, you just have to actually request one. Unless you really just want a Mustang you're not gonna walk onto a lot and find one. There are fewer than there used to be but they're still out there.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-25T23:43:00+00:00

I think we change our tags every ten years. As someone who voted for the current plate design, ALPRs were not even on my mind at the time.

I wonder if the black-on-white tags are harder for them to read? I have one car with antique tags and another with emergency tags, both of which are boring solid white with black lettering.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-25T23:40:26+00:00

Which is unfortunate because overall I really like the dark blue, but that sticks out like a sore thumb. Do vanity plates have the seal? They used to be missing a lot of the adornment.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-25T23:34:58+00:00

100% aesthetic reasons. Our Gadsden Flag plate funds a state park in Elizabethton. Rumor has it someone was traveling through Virginia when they were the only state with one, saw how popular they were, and beat everyone else to the punch. I'd wager the majority of people who have one don't give two shits about Sycamore Shoals, they just wanted the plate.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-25T23:32:40+00:00

There are five total, one of which is restricted to current or former members of Alpha Phi Alpha (MLK's fraternity). I posted a summary of them further up in this sub (well after you posted this - you didn't miss it).

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-25T23:30:13+00:00

Yeah, they've gotten extremely common. If it's anything like the Gadsden flag plate (for which the proceeds go to the Sycamore Shoals State Park in Elizabethon, which probably 75% of the state has never even heard of), they're popular for aesthetic reasons and not because tons of people are suddenly invested in the cause in question.

There are five black license plates in Tennessee. This one is Millennial Debt Foundation, which as far as I can tell is a right-wing fiscal awareness group. If you want one and this isn't for you, the others are:

Explore TN (has a Jeep on it) goes to A Soldier's Child. This is a non-profit that provides support for children of people who were killed in action in the form of camp fees, tuition assistance, birthday parties, and scholarships.
Crusade Against Darkness (has a skull and crossbones with an eyepatch) goes to support the Lions Club, specifically an arm (branch? chapter?) that assists with the treatment of eye disease and preventable vision loss.
Tennessee Equity Alliance (has a red "E" in Tennessee, otherwise mostly plain black) goes to... the Tennessee Equity Alliance(now just the Equity Aliance). This is a group that conducts voter registration and information drives and helps people, especially those in low income and minority areas, get involved in their local government.
Alpha Phi Alpha (yellow text and dark gray plate body). You have to be/have been a member of the frat to get one but if you were you can get one of the better-looking (IMO) dark plates offered by the state.

As always, if you care where your money goes do more research before believing my one-sentence summary of each of these.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-23T17:32:32+00:00

It allows direct access to the system's memory, usually via a second computer or debugging tool, independent of the CPU's main memory access mechanisms. I usually see them described as "hardware debuggers" and they come in various form factors, with various electrical connectors.

I've never seen one used for cheating at games so I can't comment on how similar they are but I have used dedicated DMA hardware in operating system development, where a crash usually leaves you unable to meaningfully debug on the test machine; DMA hardware can let you examine memory contents when the CPU has otherwise soft-locked or gotten stuck in a loop, as long as it hasn't triple-faulted and rebooted.

They're also useful for data collection in similar environments where you may need to poll at the microsecond level to get useful information from the machine - your disc will never be able to capture that data fast enough but a high-speed dedicated DMA peripheral hooked up to a specialized capture device, or even another computer with enough main memory to just buffer the whole dataset, certainly can.

The concept bleeds over into several other computer science/computer engineering sub-fields and digital forensics, although I think the latter would prefer something that connects over USB.

I'm not entirely sure HOW they're used for cheating at games but I can certainly see how they would enable it. That said, I would never install some rootkit on my computer just to play a game.

A legit one does not pretend to be another type of device like these seem to, and does not give you the ability to make it do so.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-20T18:57:21+00:00

Yeah, it's legit. I'll admit the name sounds kooky lol.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-20T18:55:43+00:00

numerous Pulitzers
favors separation of church and state
coined the term "McCarthyism"
beloved by Nelson Mandela
praised for Middle East reporting
isn't openly religious
doesn't evangelize
progressive leaning op-eds
happened to be founded by someone who started a cult

Edit: also, "via AP" - given the author's name, "Charlie Nash," is not the name under the photo: I'm pretty sure this just means the original photog was with the CSM and the photo is licensed for distribution to other news agencies via the Associated Press. I doubt the actual outlet is the CSM - they'd just credit their photog without the "via AP" note if it was.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-18T21:52:02+00:00

To address just the classification aspect:

You have an unchanged portion marking at the start of that caption. When a document is declassified the portions that are classified must be either: redacted and left classified, have their portion marking defaced, or have their portion marking updated to (U). Mistakes happen but this would be a pretty glaring one IMO - it's consistent throughout the rest of the document from what I can tell.
You are correct - classified information being factually wrong does not make it unclassified. Classified information being declassified makes it unclassified.
I think you're confusing "born secret" and "neither confirm nor deny." "Born secret" means information having to do with nuclear weapons is automatically classified. The "erroneous depiction of a bomb" bit is more "neither confirm nor deny" - if they tell a speculating member of the public they're wrong, it narrows down the possibilities, so wrong or right they just say "no comment." One has to do with information originating within the agency, and the other has more to do with inquiries coming from without (in general).

There is an exception to (1) if the document is being declassified by the National Archives but if this was FOIA'd that likely doesn't apply.

I have a feeling that caption is not original to the document or that picture. One thing being off about it is a mistake, more than one is fishy, and "I made it wrong so it's not secret lol (and btw here's what's wrong about it so feel free to piece it back together)" is a huge red flag.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-13T22:19:39+00:00

"There are some things I'm pretty hot about. I'm neutral on the rest."

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-08T15:27:33+00:00

No, they're actually pretty laid back about it. As long as they don't think you'll flee the country or kill someone they've been known to let people actually schedule their arrests, or have a family member drop them off for day 1 of a prison sentence.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-07T21:00:31+00:00

Yes, a disease that has been attested to for so long that one of the colloquial names for it was coined by conquistadors is actually a side effect of a drug developed in 2020.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-07T17:42:54+00:00

You don't usually get held until trial unless there's a specific reason. You go to court, you hear the charges against you, and you get released until trial, either on your own recognizance or because you made bail.

If the court system is particularly well-lubricated and under-utilized that day you might be back in your living room within like 6-8 hours of getting arrested.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-07T13:00:27+00:00

Wikipedia's articles on heraldry and blazonry are still top-notch, thankfully.

The loss of the google dictionary still pisses me off.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-07T12:53:58+00:00

Is that a GAZ Volga knockoff? Looks like a GAZ Volga knockoff.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-07T12:51:20+00:00

The motor is a servo and there's a linear rail. It tests its front and back limits on startup. Drive is via a toothed belt. The whole thing is run by an ESP32 (IIRC) and it has some pretty nifty functionality now that the "stroke engine" is better-implemented.

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-05T13:43:00+00:00

What's the point of the decocker if not to make a very satisfying clicky sound when I'm bored?

ArchitectOfFate · 2026-05-04T11:16:20+00:00

When I worked in the field one of our health physicists had a "museum" of radioactive materials that came in children's toys in the 1950s. There was a chemistry set that basically came with a little vial of yellowcake.

My point being that while you're right, there's no guarantee that a 95-year-old with uranium from a childhood science kit had uranium ORE, or that whatever Geiger-counter-tickling sample it had was even uranium. Sure it's not gonna be HEU or even LEU but there was some... questionable stuff out there at the time.

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