China might have a 2 year window coming up where it’s even possible to invade Taiwan. Their military has modernized a lot, but they probably aren’t quite to the point of being able to pull it off. At the same time, they are looking at a demographic cliff from the long term implications of the One Child policy.
It’s possible this window as already closed. That said, authoritarian regimes have started wars before that were terrible ideas.
Eeeeehhh, if you just look at numbers of boats, yes. The US Navy has far, far more experience, though. Drones are also going to change the game in ways we’re only starting to see with the Ukraine War. With that, the answer might be “everyone’s boats are sunk now”.
China probably couldn’t gain air superiority over Taiwan, and without that, an invasion will fail. That will be true even if the US ends up losing more boats.
Cause and effect are a little twisted here. Trump was already undermining NATO during is first term by saying European members should spend more. They didn’t agree at the time, but the Ukraine War proved that Europe really did need a more domestic MIC, and now they are.
Trump wasn’t saying it in the first place because he thought it would help NATO.
Historically, this is what the NRA was for. They had basic designs setup that were very safe, and they’d offer grants to build them. There’s a local range by me (a private club, not state owned) that was developed that way. It’d be hard to shoot a bullet and have it get out of the range area.
They still kinda do it, but it looks like the industry is sending the funds on their own rather than funneling it through the NRA. Makes sense given the current state of the NRA.
A good reminder that the system was already broken before Trump got here.
So they aren’t weeks away from a functioning weapon, and we can recall all the military buildup, right?
Right?
Yeah, this stuff takes time to work out. As long as the side effects aren’t a big deal, they might err on the side of too much.
Covid vaccines were something of an exception because they were motivated and infections were widespread. Lots of chances to get good data. Treatments for other diseases don’t have those advantages.
The HPV vax, for example, was released in 2016 on a three dose schedule. There’s some studies out there that argue two doses would be plenty, but it’s not a consensus, either. That’s after almost a decade.
PrEP is already keeping HIV infection rates pretty low, at least in rich countries where there’s money to do these studies. Not going to be good data on dose schedules for many, many years. Maybe even decades.
The Estes Corporation makes rockets that will do 600 meters.
It’s great that Honda is doing this. We really need other companies in this area, because SpaceX is dominating it. Even if Elon weren’t a walking disaster, we don’t want one company so badly outclassing everyone else.
It’s not just breeding. Are the offspring sterile? A male horse and a female donkey will get you a hinny, but they’re sterile. Male donkey and female horse makes a mule, which are almost always sterile with a few exceptions.
Eh, it’s just a start of development. It only goes 300 meters. Blue Origin goes higher, but even they aren’t in orbit.
Japan also has some odd limitations on their rockets as part of their self defense only constitution. They don’t build a rocket that could potentially be used to strike mainland Asia.
Who could have guessed that ahead of time? The industry is famous for seeing a successful new strategy and then driving it into the ground with a list of copycats. The strategy has made so much money before; why would it ever have failed this time?
/s
(Let’s all laugh at an industry that never learns anything tee hee hee)
Tactical nukes can stop just about any invasion.
That $25 estimate included a 30% profit margin already.
Yeah, those are mostly showing off. They’re not really what I’m getting at, either. I more want to challenge people to make useful things simply.
And yes, there are ways that JavaScript can be used to give users a faster and more streamlined experience. The web as it stands is so far past that justification. I swear there’s lots of “full stack” devs that haven’t a clue how to make a site without React.
Ukraine had nukes and gave them up. They were invaded.
Iraq gave up their WMD program after the first Gulf War. They were invaded again.
Iran definitely had a nuclear program, but doesn’t appear to be pursuing it anymore. They’re getting attacked and quite possibly will get invaded.
South Africa had a nuclear program and gave it up. Left alone.
The Great Powers, particularly the United States but also Russia, have shown that your country should just keep going once you start. Chances are, you’ll get invaded, anyway.
This is not the way towards anti-proliferation.
I’d like full stack developers to try something. Next time you have an itch for a personal project, see if you can make it with no frontend JavaScript. Just some CSS and HTML forms. All templating handled on the backend. Just try it and see how far you get. Don’t worry if it looks like a GeoCities page.
Then try finding places where JavaScript would make it more responsive or better UX in some way. Does the back button still work? Is it actually faster? Does it provide any benefit at all?
Maybe it does, but just try.
He’s the guy who looked directly at the eclipse, so yeah, he’d probably do that, too.
Bets on Donnie forcing it to go ahead anyway?
AWS has a multitude of different offerings with confusing pricing structures. They have zero incentive to make them understandable.
That said, chances are your new company has people who understand this already and know how to manage it. Hopefully, they’ll put up some guardrails that prevent you and others from running up a big bill. I wouldn’t expect a junior programmer to know how to do this, but that’s ok as long as the company is managed right. Granted, that can be a big if sometimes.
It was a talking point that Trump had in his first term. He tends not to let go of bad ideas once they get into his head.
At the time, people didn’t take it seriously. With the Ukraine War, Europe feels like it has to now. But it’s going to be domestic production, not paying US MIC companies like Trump was thinking.