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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow would be forced to use “more powerful and destructive weapons” against Ukraine if Kyiv started firing long-range Western missiles at Russia.

    Hey Vyacheslav, what weapons besides nuclear (and maybe biological) weapons does russia have that it hasn’t used against Ukraine already? Do you think if you use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine that that ends the war? Do you think the rest of the world will just say “welp, I guess russia used a nuke, better let them have Ukraine now”. Not even close.






  • No… it’s pretty easy

    Look into some history of India, as a sovereign nation, and how they were treated by the West for most of the 20th century. The Soviet Union was a much needed friend to India when the rest of the West turned their back after the British were kicked out. I don’t blame India for some of the continued engagement with russia. However, Ukraine was also part of the nation (Soviet Union) that helped India, and I’m not seeing weigh positively for Ukraine. I say this as an American. The West (including the USA) has done some pretty messed up stuff to other nations in the 20th century.


  • Only 4% of marketers overall think X ads provide “brand safety” — certainty that their ads won’t appear alongside extreme content —

    The 4% may represent lumpy pillow manufacturers, sellers of freeze dried survival food, random cryptocurrency products, and Trump 2024 flag/tshirt providers.

    The spokesperson added that X’s “brand safety rate is on average 99%, as validated by DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science,” companies that analyze the value of digital advertising placements.

    “But that 1% remaining will have your products featured next to ads denying the holocaust, hate speech against LGBTQ+ communities, and ads discrediting proven science in favor of, oh I don’t know, phrenology or something” -the spokesperson probably




  • I thought exactly the same thing. If they’re not a 3D printed rocket company then they’re just another of a field of rocket companies? Why would a customer choose them. The article enlightened me to who:

    In a private letter to “investors, advisors, and friends” summarizing the company’s operations after the first half of 2024, Relativity said it currently has a backlog of $2.6 billion in commercial launches and is in discussion or has signed a contract with many major megaconstellation providers (but not SpaceX). Ellis would not confirm this, but multiple people have told Ars that Relativity recently signed a deal for multiple launches with Amazon’s Project Kuiper constellation.

    There is at least $2.6 billion worth of customer that wants a SpaceX like launch product, but is unwilling to buy from an Elon Musk company. With how toxic Musk’s behavior is these days, I could see that customer market growing. The US government is putting LOTS of payloads into orbit in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 because there’s nothing even close to it in price and performance. If Relativity can even get close to Falcon 9, they’ll almost certainly pick up a large chunk of US payload contracts as the government doesn’t like to have a single supplier for nation security reasons.


  • And even after Trump is dead, there will be a hundred disciples and imitators following in his footsteps, dragging the party further down the path of xenophobia, fascism, and corruption.

    I think its going to be even worse. Because so much of the Trump cult of personality is tied to conspiracy theories, his eventual death from old age will not be believed, and a fraction of his followers will believe he was killed. I can’t imagine what that segment of people will do when their identity is so tied to Trump’s and they believe he was silenced.


  • To people joining this thread later asking where a commercial product of this is, or pointing out that 10% solar efficiency is way below other existing products, you’re missing the point.

    This is basic research to prove one single aspect of solar panel construction. That question apparently was: “We currently know that PET backsheets work for solar panels, but can we use a different material which may have less CO2 impact and still produce a working solar panel?” The answer being “yes”. That is a big step that other people doing other research and product development can build on. It may be years (or never!) that a product comes to market with sisal fiber backsheets, but the answers from the work done here are integrated into the body of knowledge that will produce the next improvement in solar panels.


  • I got an answer from the article. Essentially this guy was a known critic of the government already having spent time in prison for very direct criticisms. So he posted a dot. A completely benign post and then the following occurred:

    “[he] posted a single dot in reply to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s tweet, and that comment was liked far more than Khamenei’s original tweet”

    …and…

    “Iran watchers say the leadership has felt insecure about the high level of dissent in the country for a while”

    So a known critic did the thing you do to your old sibling where you put your finger an inch away from them and say “What? I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you!” and then your sibling is tired of your shit and smacks you very hard.