A bit of a guess, but it might be related to software cafés. They are a lot more common in the east.

Since multiple people can log into the same computer, it might over count them. They are also likely exclusively windows machines.

I believe that was a strike at their centrifuges. They are needed to enrich uranium to powerplant grade or weapons grade.

Iran had agreed to stop using them, as part of the treaty trump tore up. Afterwards, the lack of any detectable fallout indicated that they were not in use, since no uranium was present.

Basically they lost their ability to produce more weapons grade material. It is unknown how much (if any) was previously made, and might be stockpiled elsewhere.

It also shows that Iran seems to have remained in compliance, despite trump pulling out of the deal.

A lot of places train their police to de-escalate conflicts, as a default. This leads to far more reasonable encounters.

E.g. in the UK, we have some issues with racism and excessive racial profiling. I know quite a few people who dislike the police (of various ethnic groups). I know very few who fear the police (outside of them doing their job).

I also know a couple of people who work within the police (backroom). They are actively trying to deal with racism within the force. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a game of whack-a-mole, but at least they are trying.

America seems to be an exception. Just seeing your police out and about put me mentally on guard. They don’t radiate professionalism, but bully swagger.

It’s worth noting that this is talking about plug in solar, so would be at standard mains voltage.

1kw would be around 4A in Europe, but 8A in the USA. Also, since resistive losses scale with I^2 that’s 4x the heat dumped in the walls.

At least in the UK, they tend to run 3 phase to a road, but only a single phase goes into a given house. You need to get a special hook up to get 3 phase to a domestic premise, and they don’t like doing it.

I had a chat about this with a friend who works for the national grid (UK).

Apparently the problem is keeping the grid balanced and stable. Basically, the grid struggles to react fast, so they plan ahead. Things like large scale solar can provide predictions on output. Home solar can’t.

When clouds pass over an area it can cause slumps and surges in the local grid. The more home solar, the worse it gets. The current grid is designed to work top down, with predictable changes in demand. It needs upgrading to deal with large scale bidirectional flows.

The plug in units are (potentially) even more ropey. If used properly, they are no worse than normal home solar. Unfortunately, being cheaper, there are worries over the microinverters not shutting down. Either due to the manufacturer cheaping out, or turning on an “off grid” mode.

There are also worries about overloading household circuits. Back feeding bypasses the household circuit breakers and RCDs. They could overload wall wiring and cause fires, or stop an RCD tripping, allowing for a person to be shocked.

I don’t know how much this would apply to the American Grid, but I would imagine it would be worse. Your grid is older and larger. You also use 120VAC which makes the current overload issue a lot worse.

I suspect it wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective. Torpedoes fill that roll already (at least mostly).

A shahed drone carrying a modified torpedo could be terrifying however. The drone gets into range quickly. The torpedo makes final approach. It would also be a lot quicker for Iran to develop and deploy.

Modern warships basically gave up on heavy armour. Instead they use manoeuvrability and suppressive fire. They are also intended to support each other in a fleet. A single warship, running close escort, loses all these advantages. It can’t outmanoeuvre an attack, and it lacks the firepower to suppress a heavy attack on its own. Iran would make a point to try and sink both the escort ship and its protected cargo ship.

In order to work, the American navy would have to run a full convoy. A far bigger logistical challenge.

I would much rather a FOSS option, that is difficult to tap into. The other option is people using proprietary setups that can be data mined without the user’s knowledge.

Its a classic “perfect is the enemy of good” situation.

PhD level and up are notorious for over specialisation.

My university had a personal assistant, dedicated to 2 professors. Half their job was to make sure they made it to lectures on time. They still managed to be late sometimes.

The answer is quite mundane. I’ve a few friends in a (non-US) police force. The answer is that the rich/powerful are annoying as hell to go against.

They either know the law, or pay someone to know it for them. They can make obviously illegal things legal on paper. They can also nitpick everything. E.g. spending £5K on lawyers to get out of a £100 fine, since they don’t want to get the points. Any procedural mistakes, or paperwork errors can kill a case, or at least drag it out for years.

They also have contacts that can apply pressure. When their wife knows your boss’s, boss’s boss’s wife, they can make your life and career VERY uncomfortable.

End result, most officers learn to pick their battles with the rich and powerful. They will make your life hard, and will get away without everything being perfect.

In practice this can easily turn into taking the easy road. Even when the rich aren’t even technically in the right.

Most of what they do is security theatre as well. They are just a lot more competent and efficient about it.

Had a friend who worked customs. 95% of their actual work was behind the scenes. Most of the public facing stuff was book keeping and window dressing.

Having visited the US from outside, it’s not even good security theatre. They seemed the least competent airport security I’ve dealt with. That list includes Kazakhstan and several middle eastern countries.

Fully agreed that it needs to be done right. I’m definitely not the best person to try and write it.

It also needs to be area specific. A predominantly republican area would need a different message to a predominantly black community.

Has Amazon ever actually said it wouldn’t sell the results of face tracking to data brokers? I can easily see it happening. It’s a lot of tasty data to them.

A better option might be a leafleting campaign.

It would need to bypass the “I’ve nothing to hide” effect. E.g. “Does your friend have an ex they don’t want to know where they are? Facial recognition would easily put them on your doorstep. Would you like a visit from them?”

Leaning on the ICE issues right now would also work in some areas.

If someone mocked up a few variants for different demographics, that could actually help.

Also, does anyone know an easy layman alternative to ring, that is more ethical?

I’ve fixed this several times with a bit of thick tape. It wasn’t actually the button that had worn down, but the plastic stub that pressed it. A bit of extra material kept each working for months/years after.

My current mouse has this fix over a year back, and is still working reliably.

I think the Germans might have some ideas to draw from. Or at least what doesn’t work as well as you might think.

There’s the acute situation and the chronic one. The acute one needs action now. You also need to keep an eye on the long term goals.

It’s a common thing that’s been discovered with extremist groups. A good number of their members get in before it becomes extreme. By the time they realise, too much of their identity is tied up with the group. They get drawn deeper and deeper. This makes getting out both emotionally and practically costly.

Giving a release valve to remove these people from the group is emotionally unpleasant, but extremely useful for collapsing the group.

Also, those same people are often in the best position to help with deprogramming other members.

I’m not saying to let them walk Scot free, but you need to leave some way out. Unless you are willing to stand and systematically gun down them to a man (bare in mind, they will be firing back).

Those who turn soon should be accepted. Not Scot free, but accepted. There’s the possibility they were roped in by propaganda, and got too deep.

If they don’t turn now, they definitely knew what they were doing, and should face the appropriate consequences.

It’s also worth remembering, always give your enemy a way out. It’s a lot easier to run down the die-hards than deal with a group of cornered animals.

They are excellent in the hobby world. It’s generally when you need to do a bit of quick logic, an ESP32 can be dropped in to do it. E.g. change the colour of an led depending on a sensor.

They also form the core of a lot of IoT devices. Simple sensors and relays that can connect to WiFi and throw up a simple web interface. ESPhome, tasmota and WLED exist to make this extremely easy.

They are basically the hobbiest electronic multi tool. Powerful enough to do most jobs without bothering with code optimisation. Cheap enough to throw in and leave there.

In an ideal world, you have conservatives and revolutionaries. The revolutionaries want to make changes to try and make things even better. The conservatives act to maintain the status quo. When they balance properly then you get steady change, but slow enough to detect and fix cascading problems/failures.

In this situation, the centralists act as the balance point, being swayed one way or the other to set the path.

Unfortunately the only place this is actually close to accurate is Sci-Fi novels.