Remember Fat Leonard? This time there's going to be more than one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal
[deleted]
The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
421–430 of 527 posts
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there's the question of how to allocate money for secret things. In the history of war I find very few examples where an obscure secret technology was the key to military victory.
Cryptography, radar, proximity fuses, and nuclear bombs are all examples of obscure secret technologies that were keys to military victory in WWII.
Fourier transfer.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's only one of many problems with converting office building to residential. While a few conversions have succeeded, usually it's cheaper to just demolish the building and start from scratch. Allowing windowless bedrooms won't change that.
> While a few conversions have succeeded, usually it's cheaper to just demolish the building and start from scratch Do we have cases of Japan or China converting industrial or office spaces into residences?
I've no idea about Japan or China, but I do know that "office-to-resi" has become reasonably common in the UK.
Since 2013, it's been classed as "permitted development" (so, automatically allowed as long as the building isn't listed as architecturally or historically important), and liberalised further in the early 2020s.
House prices have outstripped commercial rents for most of this century, and change of use is cheaper than demolish-and-rebuild, so I'd expect to see the trend continue.
The issue with unsuitable floor plates is real, though, particularly in larger buildings. One solution is to cut chunks out of the curtain wall, turning part of each floor into an open-air terrace which functions as a light well. The reduction in useable floor area means that's only really viable at the premium end of the market, though - a prominent (albeit mixed-use) example is https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2024/07/18/striking-new...
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#424There might be no 80 year long period in global history more peaceful than the current (measured by war fatalities per global population). And this happened due to a single reason: nuclear warheads. The super-powers USA, China, India whatever better go back to a cold war: stable balance, no casualties, only media fights. Every body, war guys and normal people, is happy. And in case the things escalate we are all to a…
Then maybe American politics can go back to fighting a common enemy instead of each other.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's especially interesting because their philosophy is the opposite of Tolkien's. They seek power at all costs, trying to create 'rings' and dallying with bad people. One common rhetorical tactic, commonly used by their political allies, is to use their (perceived) enemies' most powerful words and ideas against them, to disarm and counter-attack. 'Woke' was a term on the left; racism became descrimination against wh…
Tolkien was right-wing even in his own time, for instance he was a supporter of Franco.
From the internet:
> J.R.R. Tolkien had a complex relationship with Francisco Franco, as he expressed some moral support for Franco's Nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War, primarily due to concerns over the destruction of churches by Communists. However, Tolkien's views were not strictly political and were influenced by his personal connections and Catholic beliefs.
It is maybe considered right wing to not want to destroy churches, but so what? Who cares what the side is, when the point is he didn't like Communists destroying churches.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#426As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally. Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue. Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when…
The F35 is the most in demand military plane in the world for the price. They spent 20 years iterating on it and its now the best plane for the cost with its capabilities.
And a truck full of low cost drones can swarm your airfield and take all your F35s out while they're still on the ground.
The future isn't in pilot-in-seat aircraft at all.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#427There might be no 80 year long period in global history more peaceful than the current (measured by war fatalities per global population). And this happened due to a single reason: nuclear warheads. The super-powers USA, China, India whatever better go back to a cold war: stable balance, no casualties, only media fights. Every body, war guys and normal people, is happy. And in case the things escalate we are all to a…
I thought this was interesting speculation and googled quickly.
It seems... debatable? Close? Obviously a challenging dataset to gather accurately.
https://www3.nd.edu/~dhoward1/Rates%20of%20Death%20in%20War....
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
The LoTR had a great distrust of power as dangerous and corrupting - the Ring corrupted everyone who tried to use it - and a rejection of those who abided with evil. The mission was to destroy the power, not build a super-army.
Well in fact the raising of a huge army is indeed one of the goals of the protagonists. Of course for them the goal is to defeat evil. I'm sure that the people behind Palantir, Anduril and other such companies also believe they are building a military capability that will allow the United States to defeat what they see as evil. Every centre right libertarian I've encountered also has a "great distrust of power". All…
well, this assumes that the person who created Palantir identifies with the protagonists and not with mordor, and this issue with your interpretation is that peter thiel very explicitly identifies with mordor
“Gandalf’s the crazy person who wants to start a war… Mordor is this technological civilization based on reason and science. Outside of Mordor, it’s all sort of mystical and environmental and nothing works.” - Thiel 2011 Details
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/takedemocracyback.org/post/3lk4u55a... it's an interview from the September issue of details magazine 2011, has largely been scrubbed from the internet
So in the case of Thiel, he read LOTR and identified with the villains, which is about as large a misreading of Tolkien as one can make
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#429As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally. Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue. Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when…
The goal of these rules is to reduce corruption and theft. A lot of these rules go out the window when there is a need for speed. The goals have obviously changed: the US Gov believes the world is on a path to war again, and is reforming on that assumption.
... or alternatively the "US Gov" believes that more corruption and theft is desirable.
Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bad news. Trump and Hegseth do not have the authority to rename the Department of Defense, no matter what they put on a Web site. That requires an act of Congress, which hasn't happened. And probably won't, because even if they could convince Congress to do it, that would require them to ask ... and their whole modus operandi is based around pretending to have authority they don't have. Calling it the Department of W…
They can add a secondary title. And they're drafting legislation to change the primary title. Seems pretty simple.
Drafting legislation isn't the same thing as that legislation having passed. It's the Department of Defense until Congress says otherwise.