nsplayr

Was it a whoop band around your wrist or an oura ring? Oura is approved in our SCIF already along with a handful of other devices. Did you do tracked metrics in lieu of the annual fitness assessment or just in addition? A fitness tracker would work well for RPA specifically, we literally have a gym in the room adjacent to one of our GCSs haha, no excuses! I’m interested on the details of what y’all did particularly if it was in lieu of the annual PT test. My CC is interested and I’m trynna make it happen. Accelerate change or lose right? May the odds ever be in our favor…

Humm…quick math says max waist for a 5’10” person is 38”. And I know a handful of people fatter than that and shorter than me 😅 What I wanna see is what I’ve heard the Space Nerds…er Force are doing with a wearable and tracked metrics year-round in lieu of a once a year test. Some people may not like that and I wouldn’t want to see it as a mandatory program, but I’d love to try that out sometime. If anyone knows an AF squadron that has figured out a waiver or experiment among those lines holla at me!

If I were a betting man I'd bet that he'll either get drafted or quickly signed as an undrafted free agent shortly after the draft. Cheap backup who's got that dawg in him quite literally. Not unlike Taylor Heinicke, who's last season in college before being signed was a not-notable 6-6 at Old Dominion. Not a fantastic or really even a starting NFL QB, but talented and motivated enough to earn a roster spot for a handful of years. Scrappy and a proven winner. Plus ole SBIV won 2x national championships for the #1 team in the country who can recruit damn near any 5-star QB they could dream of...that ain't nothing.

While I support the neat psychological trick of The Missile Gap in order to motivate our industry/leaders/people to stay sharp, I just don't actually believe in it myself. There are indeed some areas where we are not dominant, or not as dominant as we used to be, or not or even ahead at all right now. I do work in a SCIF every day and have the benefit of a great cadre of intel professionals as colleagues as well as my own ability to read. But when taken as a whole, again, there is absolutely zero chance a rational person would rather be Russia/China/etc. than the USA if this were all just a big game of Risk. For all the doomsaying and whining/bitching/complaining that happens around here on every imaginable subject, I like to highlight the positive once in a while...so sue me. America is great, the future is bright, hug your wife & your kids, bang your mistresses, and drink every last drop of good whiskey 🇺🇸

And Russia/China famously have no corruption, waste or bureaucracy 😅 As much as it sucks to see some Lockheed bean counter nonner get a fat paycheck knowing that the product could be better, capitalism still produces waaay less waste than bribing every party official from the manufacturing shop foreman up to the General Secretary. Remember it's all relative, like some of y'all's marriages down there in lower Alabama. Are we more or less corrupt/bureaucratic/wasteful than our likely opponents? Can we generate reliable combat power more often or less often than them? Can we bring coordinated fires and effects to bear in more or less key places than them? Can we communicate better up and down the chain or worse? Etc. etc. As always during my entire lifespan, I'm putting us ahead in almost every category. No sane person would look at the world's balance of power, be it economic, military, cultural, technological, etc. and choose to be anyone other than the United States. "America! America. God shed his grace on thee."

Yea, between charging to 100% every time and driving around for about ~1K miles in a month, the range estimator has seems very accurate and linear. More so than the gas gauge on my proviso vehicle haha! Like I said, I think the BMS software is improved.

We have the best funded, most capable military in the world and are allied with most of the other powerful players. Russia, a primary antagonist, is actively destroying their military as we speak due to extremely poor policy choices and battlefield performance, which is great news for us. China has a fragile and IMHO inferior political system, a worrying short- to medium-term economic outlook due to awful COVID policies, and a massive demographic problem that will take decades to unwind. DoD topline numbers are the highest they’ve ever been, even while being a lower % of GDP, which I see as a good thing. Because we are so much wealthier than in the past and also in comparison to our adversaries, we can significantly outclass them even while enjoying more bread & butter to go along with all those beans & bullets. Dems are almost 100% united behind supporting Ukraine’s democratic government and independence from a belligerent and invading neighbor. The GOP has some very notable fissures on the issue and some members who want to, IMHO, hang Ukraine out to dry and capitulate to Putin. The last DoD budget was historically high and well above even what the DoD itself asked for, and that was with trifecta Dem control. Now with a GOP House there’s talk of looming cuts. Some old assumptions about where the parties stand on robust defense spending and strong international relations may need to be reassessed if y’all haven’t updated yours recently. 🇺🇸🇺🇦 I for one welcome a coalition between mainstream Dems and Republicans to box out the mostly hapless left-wing tankies and the MAGA flavored right-wing isolationists, who unfortunately make up a sizable chunk of the GOP right now. They’re both wrong and America needs to remain strong and active on the international scene UFN.

Haven’t seen anything in the owners manual or forums about needing to recalibrate the battery management system in my LFP Tesla car. I don’t even think there’s an option to do so. The manual just says to charge up to 100% once per week and recommends you charge to 100% whenever you want, including daily. It seems like they’re figured out the software a bit better and apparently it maintains fairly solid range guesstimations all the way down. I’ve only driven mine down to 11% but it seemed fairly linear/predictable. I did hear stories of older S and X Models have some unexpected dying at low but non-zero states of charge, but that was years ago and also using NMC batteries regardless. For home storage it’s probably even less important to have a gnat’s ass accurate % remaining number because in a lot of applications if your battery is empty you just seamlessly switch to pulling from the grid, but I’m betting the issue can be solved entirely with wherever BMS software Tesla has in their newer LFP cars.

You don’t see it because like you said, you agree with what she says. But as a Dem I will tell you she is not one, hasn’t been one in a long time, and so the “D” next to her name (until recently) means absolutely nothing. It she does get paid a lot by Fox News and etc. to play a role and she does it very effectively!

Y'all know this is what Tulsi's grift is too, right? I will hand it to her, she is nice to look at...but this is her exact playbook and it has paid off handsomely.

I can't understand WTF you're talking about here after all that whiskey, and a 45+ minute youtube video of two unknown dudes talking is below my line. Do you have a TL;DR once you're sober? Cheers!

🚩🚩🚩 all around

God bless that young man, what a patriot 🫡🇺🇸 The SCIF pocket is also an unusual but approved method for transporting classified. Just gotta double-bag it, so stuff it in your underwear inside of your flight suit and Lady Liberty will remain tucked in and secure at home 😅

Quick point for you meme makers out there: American Military University based in West Virginia, founded in 1991, and a for-profit, is the online “you get out what you put in” military degree factory. Not terrible but not amazing. It is what it is. Whereas American University is a nice, private, non-profit traditional brick-and-mortar university in Washington, DC, founded in 1893, and known for students studying international relations and public administration. I have degrees from both so I’m highly qualified and educated to speak on this specific topic 😅

Not a UM or OSU fan, but the origin joke with that same punchline is much funnier 😅

I do, yea, primarily because there's a ton of effort/money/brainpower being thrown at the problem as we speak and a lot of it is coming back to the US in terms of manufacturing. Leave it to the good ole U.S. of A. to pull off a huge technological W just in time, it's kind of our speciality. I also think that in addition to the normalish cost reduction curve of any mass consumer technology, home storage in particular will get cheaper even quicker precisely because there are more and more EVs on the road. As some of the first wave of EVs get retired, those battery packs that are no longer ideal for driving are perfect for home storage where space and weight isn't nearly as big of a concern. I would freaking love to get an old 85kWh Tesla battery pack from like a 2012 Model S and throw it in my garage for pennies on the dollar compared to their new batteries. Also newer chemistries developed to help mitigate some of the fire/degradation concerns with NMC batteries will help costs for everyone. As more LFP comes on line, relatively safe and still-capable older NMC packs that have been in use for years should drop in cost even more as consumers with the $$ will start choosing LFP and similar better chemistry batteries for bougie installations and bargain hunters can benefit. Yep, you're spot on all-around pretty much. I don't have a generator but have considered it as an additional layer of backup/safety to my power setup. We have natural gas central heat and an existing stub-out for my grill on the porch. It wouldn't be terribly expensive to fork that stub out and put a natural gas-fed small generator on the back porch as well for exactly what you mentioned, charging our batteries in the event of an extended outage that happens during cloudy/stormy winter days where my solar won't be able to produce much of anything. I will probably spend money on rain water collection/storage/pumping next, but more power security is still on my list even though I'm in a great place with solar + storage now. I had no time, desire or skills right now for a big solar + battery DIY, but if I ever bought an off-grid cabin in the mountains, which I'd love to own one day, I will probably take the time to learn and do it myself out there in the woods. This youtube channel has a great DIY solar storage container project that I enjoyed watching a lot: https://www.ambitionstrikes.com/offgridpower Also correct...the global implications of China keeping COVID near zero for years with extremely draconian lockdowns, failing to vaccinate it's elderly and vulnerable populations, and now doing a complete 180 and just letting the virus rip is going to result in a ton of death and economic destruction. I'm glad a lot of solar/battery/chip manufacturing is coming back to the US, but it's not gonna happen fast enough to buffer the turmoil out of China in the near future unfortunately. Check out that Homegrid Stack'd battery if anyone wants a more DIY setup, it looked really legit. It is a newer company though and I was more wary about their warranty...a 20 year warranty from a 2 year old company doesn't mean a whole lot IMHO but the technology looked very legit and it seemed pretty simple to install and even easier to expand in small increments in the future.

I don't think I'm involved in this trains vs planes discussion at all, but I love you too man 😘

I've seen his videos before, he's good. 1000% agree the Powerwall is overpriced. I own a Tesla Model 3 that cost, say, $50K (2023 RWD). It has a ~60 kWh battery. Each Powerwall has 13.5 kWh of storage and costs about $11K on average ($12.5K for the first one, $9K for the second one because you already have the gateway and wiring; close enough). So that's $815 per kWh, which is similar to the price per kWh of my car except, oh yea...it's an entire freaking car and not just a battery in a box! Powerwall is a luxury product because Tesla is using the same batteries* as their vehicles but the market thus far has supported a much higher markup and they're still sold out for years. Good for them I guess, capitalism FTW. If the price was still $6K like when the Powerwall 2 first came out I would have bought three. I looked at a bunch of different setups and despite the cost, SolarEdge + Powerwall was my preferred option. The software interface with Powerwall is fantastic, it was the preferred option to install for my preferred installation vendor (LightWave Solar), and I didn't want to DIY. My runner-up was SolArk inverter with the HomeGrid Stack'd batteries which seem cool because they're LFP and modular and also on the DC-side of the equation so it's a bit more efficient. *Caveat that my car actually has a different battery chemistry than my Powerwalls...LFP in the car vs NMC in the Powerwalls.

Counterpoint: I think the US is in a great position post-COVID, and pre-COVID we were still unquestionably the global #1. China is getting absolutely rekt by the virus right now due to extremely poor central government policy choices. I truly feel bad for the Chinese people. Russia is in shambles both militarily, financially, and demographically. I don’t see how they recover from the massive loss of young male life and national wealth in my lifetime. The EU is closely allied with us and we’re working together really well on the Ukraine War. No one else matters that much to be in the same conversation yet. Meanwhile the US economy is doing better than basically any other advanced nation, we’re also basically past COVID, we’re smartly re-shoring some critical manufacturing that I think is really beneficial long-term, and we’re super well placed to lead the big energy technology transition that will take place over the next 20 years. Our military is well funded and strong, millions of people want to come here and become Americans, and our culture is globally dominant. I’d rather be us every day of the week and twice on Sunday 🇺🇸🦅

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/ We’ve provided the vast majority of direct mil aid, the EU has provided more financial aid. Individual EU/NATO countries have made additional contributions. All well worth it, I’m perfectly happy let the Russian armed forces crash against the hard rocks of Ukraine for as long as those idiots want to do so!

That’s pretty sweet, esp because I’m assuming you didn’t have to pay to install the charger. I also have a chargepoint in my garage and pay $0.097 per kW from the grid which is super nice. Great charger for my first EV (2021 VW ID.4) and I’m recently finding out it works well for my Tesla too with the adapter that came with the car. GL with the solar + storage setup when you buy a house at some point!

2x Tesla Powerwall 2s, so 27 kWh of storage. I would have gone with 3x powerwalls on a 10.2 kW solar system but they’re just so damn expensive. I have a decent ability to charge my EVs during daylight hours due to shift work, so ultimately I decided against it for now. Could easily add a third in the future and if the prices come down, tech gets even better or I really just have the need after seeing the system production numbers for a year +, I will. Ideally in the near future also all EVs would be able to do straight up bi-directional charging. I’ve got another 142 kWh of “storage” between my two cars, it would be phenomenal to be able to feed that back into my powerwalls and therefore my house load panel during an extended outage situation where I might value electricity in my home more than driving. The F-150 Lightning I think will be the first EV in America that can do this, although I’ve heard the setup is very expensive once it’s all said and done.

Same in TN, although rooftop solar for homeowners is still relatively rare because TVA power is really very cheap so the numbers don’t work for most folks. We don’t have net metering and there’s an obscure and not-really-worth-it TVA distributed producer program that I don’t plan on joining. My solar just got installed but projected, conservative production numbers would have me totally off the grid other than we now drive 2x EVs that will consume quite a bit of electricity. My production and storage will be well above typical household loads (minus EV transportation) and my only power bill should be the $17 a month it costs to stay connected to the grid. Even having zeroed out my transportation fuel budget with the EVs, my solar will produce about ~90% of my needs including lots of driving, which should be great. Also no need to worry about blackouts, which we just experienced this week, or future electricity price increases. Long-term costs will be about $335 a month to pay for the system, but like I said I also zeroed out my gasoline budget and about 80% of my electricity bill, so true net monthly costs to have this technology are even lower. Absolutely viable here and now and the tech is only getting better and cheaper in the long-run.

@Lord Ratner either you’re right and every major government, energy company, and electrical utility are wrong for investing trillions into new solar and wind capability…or perhaps it’s the inverse. Hard to say 🤷‍♂️

Yea, obv defining "winning" is and has always been the issue. I'd argue we somewhat "won" in Iraq although at TREMENDOUS, unfathomable cost. Today Iraq is better and more US-friendly than under Saddam, but phew it was not an easy road. Afghanistan I'd say is equally bad today as pre-9/11, maybe a bit less so because the problem has not has as long to fester, again at incredible cost. Wish we had done better there strategically...I certainly tried to do my part tactically. But as you said, our spending blood and treasure can't go on forever, even as the global superpower. We are monitoring & assessing and striking when juicy opportunities arise, and I'd argue that's the right strategy for most of the familiar shitholes we've been fighting in for the last 20 years. RPA in particular will continue keeping the lid on as best as is possible with imperfect intel and understanding that the enemy always gets a vote as well. As you well know, VEO isn't going away but it's no longer the focus, nor should it be IMHO.