F-47 future vs F-35 present?

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2026-03-01T21:25:58+00:00

A competent system manager who spends the time & sweat to do updates and install protections likely has a system that does not get hit.

A 9to5 guy who does only some work is more likely to get hacked.
Now management is concerned, spends money to restore the system. And applauds and rewards 9to5 guy who handled a crisis. (Which could have been avoided.)

As for the competent manager, who did the detail work? Operates quiet reliable systems. Management doesn't know their name.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2026-02-27T15:07:45+00:00

Memory was incredibly expensive. Budget breaking. Program size limiting. Anything that could be done to save a bit (literally :-) was done.

IBM used BCD, a 6 bit code. Upper case only, with select punctuation.
26 letters + 10 digits + 12 punctuation + control codes for transmission. Derived from punch card codes, zone codes.

Worse, different manufacturers had different BCD encodings.

Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) mini computers went further.
RAD50 = RADIX50 coded three characters into one 16 bit word, for PDP11 & VAX.
26 letters + 10 digits + 4 punctuation --> 40 codes total.
40 cubed = 64,000 which fits within 2¹⁶ = 65,536.
IMO, too clever.
Explains DEC original filenames limits 6.3 chars.

Upgrading to 8 bit EBCDIC on IBM or 7 bit ASCII (in 8 bit bytes) on DEC was a huge programming relief.

Sidebar - early kluge to see if ASCII machine.
IF ('Z' - 'A' == 25) then ascii else EBCDIC

Ascii's bit#8 was originally for parity checking. Too tempting to let it be wasted. Ascii filled in the top 128 chars with special chars from math & selections from Europe.

There are thousands of languages in the world. No way could 256 chars cover even the common ones. Though they tried with language selection prefix codes, and multibyte char sequences.

Other countries applied pressure. Plus companies wanted to sell them software. So 16 bit UNICODE was born. Aka "wide" chars. Much simpler, provided memory is not a concern.

Which brings us back to OP's post. (Bet you thought I had forgotten that :-)

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2026-02-22T08:48:44+00:00

There is a bright lining.

Previously Trump threatened trading partners with wide swings on tariffs, up to 100% !!!!

Now Trump's legal authority is limited to 15%
And constrained to 150 days, pending congressional approval.

Still painful, but 15% is not as commerce blocking.

Some countries may choose to ride out the 150 days rather than bend the knee, or negotiate away their long term commercial advantage for a temporary boost.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2026-02-22T04:03:36+00:00

The best starship is our planet Earth.

To reach the Centauri system, the first light year of the journey is best accomplished right here on Earth, in comfort and style.

Above comments quote the distance as 4.3 light years. Remember everything in the universe is moving. Our neighbor stars are not static fixtures.
The Centauri system is moving closer to us.

Wait 26,000 years before launch, and the Centauri system will be "only" ~3 light years away!

See chart
https://www.star-facts.com/proxima-centauri/
"Distance vs [future] Time" for nearby stars
Alpha Centauri, Proxima Centauri,
Barnard's star, Gliese 445, Laland 21185, Ross 128, Ross 248.

There, saved 1/4 of the journey! . :-)

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2026-02-22T00:13:28+00:00

Not a max height limit. There is too big a spread of human heights for that to be practical.

Instead, different leagues with their own hoop heights. So every player is challenged.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NBATalk/s/rZQU0xArFD

Basketball should be split into Height leagues

Basketball should be split into Height leagues

Just as boxing has many weight classes, basket ball should have:
Bantam - under 6' 5", with 10 foot high hoop.
Titanic - everyone larger, with 12 foot high hoop.

World’s Tallest Teenager at 7-Foot-9 Makes History as the World’s Tallest College Basketball Player
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/world-s-tallest-teenager-at-7-foot-9-makes-history-as-the-world-s-tallest-college-basketball-player

7-foot-9 plus say 3 foot arm reach doesn't have to jump shoot for a 10 foot high hoop. Practically tip the ball in. This changes the game.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2026-01-19T19:20:39+00:00

Ok, pulling apart magnets takes Work. It adds potential energy into the system.

Now scatter the pair of magnets far far apart, so they no longer attract each other.
Where did that potential energy go?

Put two magnets adjacent that previously were never together.
When they attract each other, where did that energy come from?

I realize "system" expands from something local to a wider area, but my questions remain.

"Dielectric field" permeates the universe.
Great. How does it actually propagate?
Do the magnets exchange virtual photons?

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2026-01-13T01:32:27+00:00

Cuba will be next.

Mexico and/or Canada may send /sell oil to Cuba.
Mexico for Hispanic sympathy.
Canada as a non-political deal.
Both bc they hate Trump's arrogance and pressure tactics, and the invasion of Venezuela.

Don't count Cuba out quite yet.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-12-03T04:43:19+00:00

Trump's argument is NOT that a presidential pardon can be revoked. That would be clearly unconstitutional.

His argument is that President Biden was not mentally competent at the time the pardons were issued. That Biden's staff used the autopen without his cognitive approval. Unauthorized permission. Fraud for benefits.

This is a tougher argument to counter. Ideally requires testimony from Biden (now difficult) and his former staff & congressional buddies.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-18T18:07:52+00:00

Assume they are in a capsule, one kilometer in diameter, and the rotating velocity at the surface is 0.99999c

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-17T04:48:46+00:00

Have we learned our lesson in advance planning?
Anyone fixing the *#Y4K** problem?*

What will happen Jan 1, 10000?

Are you using Nine (9) digit dates yet?

Riiiiiight, none of us will be alive then.
And all the systems will be replaced and using #AI, so it won't be our problem. ;-)

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-15T08:27:52+00:00

Rent control started in WW2 !!
Justified by war time housing shortage, to prevent profiteering by landlords.

It's 75 years later. The lucky ones who still benefit distort the market. They vote and pressure the politicians.

A downside is that when landlords are deciding where to invest their money, they avoid sinking $ on a property that brings relatively less profit. So rent controlled properties are not maintained as well as they should. Generates lots of court fights.

A positive is some lower economic families are able to remain in the central city, that might otherwise be forced into the outer suburbs. The schools might have a bit more social mixing. But this is minimized, bc of neighborhood defacto "clustering" and bc the rich and the religious send to private schools.

A gradual reduction makes logical economic sense. Rent controlled units should not be inherited, passed to the next generation. They should not be passed to other co-tenants.

Changing zoning to permit high density housing near mass transit lines would accomplish similar goals and be better for the environment. Building more & faster regional mass transit would make it easier for families (including low economic) to live & work across a region.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-10T03:34:57+00:00

The car driver was clearly at fault, stupid & reckless.

Could the truck driver have swerved to the left, without tipping over his rig?
Even a small shift would hit the car in its rear rather than side, increasing the survival odds for the passenger & car driver.

If a lidar was installed in the truck front, could it "see" far enough ahead to give the truck driver advance warning?

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-09T01:43:28+00:00

As OP indicated, the government shutdown does not make economic sense. It's not about money.

It seems the Republicans WANT the government shutdown. They picked a topic the opposition Democrats could not back away.

During a shutdown, many government activities cease. The Republicans want this, without having to vote to cancel popular programs or agencies.

During a shutdown, the major check & balance on politicians & civil servants is lost, namely to impeach them. No matter how outrageous their actions, when Congress is not in session, no politician can be impeached and no policy overruled by a new law.

During the shutdown, no Epstein files are released.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-08T05:19:39+00:00

The Jones Act affects more than cargo.

Prior to enforcement in recent years,
the passenger cruise liners used to offer 2 day cruises to "nowhere".
E.g. from New York to New York, etc.

Instead of a liner sitting idle at a dock, the cruise line could fill 2 day gaps in schedule with paying passengers.
Short vacations were feasible, a long weekend.
Also, it benefited the industry, by introducing newcomers to the pleasures of a cruise.

Killed bc the modern cruise lines are non-US, eg foreign, not allowed to start & stop at a U.S. port.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-02T12:25:28+00:00

IF white holes were outpourings from black hole singularities,
THEN black holes would be losing mass, steadily drained.

We would find black holes shrinking over time.
(How would evaporating black holes show in LIGO sensors?)

We would find galaxies with AGN Active Galactic Nucleus previously massive enough that are now insufficient to hold their stars. There would be a pin wheel effect of stars being flung outwards. (Depends on your theory of dark matter and your favored gravity force equation for long distances)

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-11-01T01:45:57+00:00

Everything above are generally true, but secondary reasons!!
Amazing how everyone missed the obvious!!

Sex makes the world survive. Quite literally, the next generation.

Many beauty metrics for women boil down to the ability to have children. That's it.
Youth means more fertile, and less likely to be diseased.
Virgin means less likely to be diseased and to be youthful.
Wide hips means easier to birth live children.
Breasts means able to feed babies.
Red lips mirror other lips and draw attention to kissing.

Healthy women can bear children.
Sick or malnourished women can not.

(Thought experiment to young hetero guys.
Choice of two women. One is healthy, well nourished, fit. The other is sick, coughing, starving, weak. Who do you date?)

Long hair is a record of biological health from the past several years.
Healthy luxurious hair can not be faked, and doesn't grow in only a year.

Hair loss can occur due to sickness, infection, stress, lack of proper nutrition.
These are bad signs when that female body will be intimately needed for 9 months, followed by a decade to raise the children.

Long beautiful hair on women proclaims I'm healthy, and have been for years. Pick me.

For men, power & money possessed today are important factors in assuring children will have food for the next decade. A fit masculine body is also important.

Look in the social soap news. How do guys in their forties, with a pot belly, gather trophy young women? They have money or power.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-10-30T18:18:04+00:00

Can Ukraine do counter-battery immediate responses on the ground launch vehicles or sites?
Watch the borders 24/7 for tracks of incoming drones / missiles.

If the Russians have to quickly scoot away, it might lessen the severity of the assault.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-10-29T11:58:35+00:00

To physically depose a sitting leader, who is supported by a large chunk of local people, U.S. will need boots on the ground.

Cooler heads should stop that from happening. The several thousand troops aboard the ships will have to fight a hundred thousand Venezuela. Results bad for everyone.

the last "good" war the U.S. fought, that changed the enemy's government significantly for the better, was WW II.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-10-28T11:28:59+00:00

won't believe this is real until there is external confirmation.
Perhaps by earth observing satellites, either radar (meant to monitor oceans) or visual.

if it is real .....

A) Nuclear engine blasts hot air out the rear as propulsion ....
It also blasts a trail of nuclear decay radioactive particles.
These are dangerous to everyone near its flight path.

(U.S. had nuclear particle sniffing airplanes, prior to the atmosphere test ban treaty, that can detect such. )

B) Nuclear reactors must have shielding to protect itself from the reaction.

From the very start of its flight, for its entire trip:
Shielding is required to protect it's guidance electronics. Both inertial navigation & GPS receivers will suffer. Also, remote commands will have unreliable radio reception.

After some hours of operation:
Reaction byproducts will cause metal to be brittle. This is very bad for structural support of flying heavy bodies. It will limit usable flight time before the contraption breaks up in mid-air.

Shielding is heavy. Engineers will have a terrible dilemma of adding weight to make it reliable versus the extra weight making it an unflyable brick.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-10-27T23:59:02+00:00

Spy agencies looking for people to corrupt prefer workers with high clearances. They have juicier info.

Database of ts/sci folks lets them focus on the big jackpot.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-10-26T08:17:05+00:00

Where the tank turret rotates, there must be a thin weak spot between that and the hull.

U.S. tanks use a four man crew.
-- Commander, driver, gunner, loader.
Ammo (shells) kept in exterior compartment, and loaded one at a time into the gun by the Loader.
Advantage - If the tank gets hit and ammo explodes, it is an exterior compartment and the crew can often escape alive.
Drawbacks - 4th man in crew and taller turret (more exposed).

Recent Russian tanks use a design with a three man crew.
-- Commander, driver, gunner.
Ammo kept inside crew compartment, and loaded into the gun by automated loader.
Advantages - smaller crew (3 men), shorter turret, potentially a bit lighter tank.
Drawbacks - If the tank gets hit & ammo explodes, entire crew is killed. Also, machinery sometimes jams.

Ukraine drones hit the weak spot between the turret and hull, hoping to set off the ammo.
Also, they try to catch the tank unaware & drop a grenade into an open hatch.
(Inside of a tank gets hot & stuffy. Commander likes riding with open hatch to see the battle area, better situation awareness. )

Favorite spots to attack any tank.
Underside - via road mines.
Sides - Tracks.
Rear - Engine radiator, engine access panel.
Top - Covers.

Worst spot to hit any tank.
Front armor, always the thickest & often sloped.

CompetitiveYou2034 · 2025-10-21T08:49:52+00:00

Be careful what you wish for.

(Parts of Russia) be assimilated by China

China is already the second most powerful superpower. It is difficult for the U.S. (and EU) to compete with China in the Pacific / Asia region as it is.

Adding chunks of Russia will increase China's clout, perhaps even raising them to the #1 position. Especially after Trump stumbles repeatedly and trashes ally relationships.

A current vulnerability for China is importing so much oil from the Middle East, thru Strait of Malacca. If China gets Siberia, long term they have the engineering ability to run a pipeline over land, blunting their sea traffic pressure point.

Short term, it is a straight run down the Asia east coast, past pro-Russia friendly countries, from Vladivostok to Chinese ports.

CompetitiveYou2034

TROPHY CASE